King Nothing
by redseeker
Summary: 1000 years after the battle of Earth, Starscream awakes on a distant planet. With Megatron long-defeated by the Autobots, Starscream sets out on a journey to claim the Decepticon army for himself, its rightful leader. However, he soon learns that the universe has moved on. TFA, sticky slash. OCs x Starscream, Optimus x Starscream, Megatron x Starscream.
1. The Wasteland

Starscream awoke.

Awareness crept up on him gradually, his processor's numerous subsystems booting up one by one. His fans creaked to life, and dust and grains of of debris blew from his vents in a puff.

Both optics flickered, and one remained online. The other died. Starscream blinked, and his claws twitched. He became aware of the sensation of weight, pinning him down. He hurt... Warnings and diagnostics began to scroll across his HUD. Fuel low, damaged frame, wings reporting damage... Without moving, he searched his internal diagnostics for an energy signal or power source. He found nothing.

He lay still for a moment. Or perhaps for fifty stellars. His chronometer was glitched. When he felt he had gathered up enough strength, he moved his head with a painful creak.

His optics picked out nothing but dark, unfamiliar shapes. What planet was he on? Was this the Well of All Sparks? Was it the Pit?

He drew a long, slow intake. The air tasted old, dry, and bitter. He thought he could taste rust. His frame was half-crushed beneath an immense weight, limiting the amount of air his vents could draw in.

More time passed. There was a trace of fuel left in his tank – the only energy source his sorry system had, if his internal scans were to be trusted. It should be enough to get him moving, but just barely.

It took all the will-power he possessed to move. After a struggle with his own stiffened joints, he moved his hand. The fingers flexed, slowly, one by one. Then the wrist, turning slowly. The joint whirred as it moved.

He continued on like this, the kliks passing by with meaningless regularity on his chronometer. The star-date it read was nonsensical. It must be broken.

Slowly, slowly, but inexorably, unstoppably, Starscream regained control over his frame. He lifted his head. There was something pinning him, something big. Somehow he got his hands under him and _pushed_. Whatever it was creaked and scraped against the sensitive planes of his wings, and Starscream hissed in pain but did not stop. By the time he reached his hands and knees, the debris – a severed wing of a massive aircraft – was finally unbalanced enough, and it fell from his back with a screaming crash and clattered down and away. Starscream yelled as the friction lifted the top layer of his armour with it, scraping his back and wings raw. He knelt, shaking, and mastered his pain. Then, he lifted his head. Using his one functioning optic and his long disused sensors, he scanned the area.

He was on a scrapheap. As far as he could see and sense, for miles and miles around, nothing but the unending scrapheap.

Starscream manoeuvred his aching frame until he sat with his damaged back against a wall of rusted steel. The pressure against his fresh wounds hurt him, but the exertion of freeing himself had left him exhausted and weak.

He closed his optics and cycled a few slow, rattling breaths. When he reopened them he felt stronger.

He looked down at himself, and assessed the damage. His left leg below the knee was gone. His remaining thruster was gummed up with mud, gravel, and unnameable machine parts. His cockpit glass was smashed and the empty chamber within cruelly exposed, the inner panels and sensors scratched and scuffed and nicked. The chamber itself was filled with sand, dirt, and gathered sediment. Three of his claws had broken tips, two on the right hand and one on the left. One of his shoulder guards was missing. The crack in the centre of his helm was empty but for a dry cement of dust and gravel. But the worst damage was to his wings. One was broken off only a short way along its once smoothly elegant curve, and the edge was raw, the inner struts and cables raggedly exposed to the elements. The other was bent out of shape, the metal so misshapen it looked as if it had been beaten with a hammer.

If he forced himself, he could numb his sensors enough to dial the pain down to a manageable level. He was no stranger to pain. However, he hadn't sustained this kind of damage without his Allspark fragment to repair him in a long time – not since the battles, the dogfights, the charges of the ancient war. All those seemed like memories from another life, now – files copied from some other mech's hard drive.

The place where he sat was desolate. The sky was reddish grey, with portentous black clouds hanging motionless in great oily smears across the stratosphere. The horizon was bleak, formed of rolling hills and jagged towers of scrap, spare parts, and dead mechs. It was straight out of a protoform's horror story. It was a vast, desert graveyard.

He didn't know which way to go. He couldn't fly with only one thruster and one wing, and neither could he walk, but he certainly couldn't stay there. He pressed his lips into a tight line.

After a few kliks' thought and concentration, he formulated a code that looked passably similar to an Autobot's and began to transmit a distress call. He would pose as a helpless Autobot scout lost on an alien world, and somebot would be _bound _to come to his aid... wouldn't they? There was no guarantee the signal was even strong enough to reach beyond the planet's thickly polluted atmosphere, but he had to try something. It was worth a try.

He looked up at the sky – hoping to see a craft, a far-off speck that might mean rescue. There was nothing but a red-black cloud-scape. Night would fall soon, and he didn't know what kind of hazards the planet would present once the darkness came.

He picked a direction and began to crawl. The awkward position of the break to his leg meant that after a while he was forced to simply drag himself forward by hooking his claws into the sloping detritus beneath him and pulling himself along. Slowly, like this, Starscream began to cross the desert.

* * *

Darkness was almost upon him by the time Starscream found a sheltered place. The clouds above had grown thicker, and a hot wind had begun to gust, tumbling debris around the dunes of wreckage.

The shelter he found was a cave formed from the carcass of a massive bomber plane. It had been a mech once, if the Decepticon brands on the one remaining wing were anything to go by, and was framed by stellar cycles' worth of accumulated scrap. The burnt red sun was going down as he reached it, and a light rain had begun to fall. He dragged himself beneath the curved roof and collapsed face-down on the dusty floor. The hull of the plane curved above him. There was just enough room to fit his wingspan inside. Beyond the shelter, smoke hissed from the wreckage where the rain hit it. He curled up smaller, and hoped the roof would be strong enough to keep him safe.

There was a distinct rattle and wheeze to his every breath, and his internal fans creaked and strained from the exertion of crawling across the wasteland. His throat was sore. Exhausted, he lay where he fell. With little fuel and no spark or shard, he felt more tired than he could remember. He felt almost as drained and dry as the husk he now made his shelter.

As the sun finally set and a deep shadow crawled across the surface of the desert, Starscream forced himself to sit up. He scraped with his claws and kicked with his foot until he could lean his back against the wall of the "cave". He panted at the exertion and glanced about him. At least the acid rain was stopping, for now. He kept the beacon pulsing at regular intervals.

Exhausted as he was, he didn't feel like recharging. He had slept long enough already.

If his internal chronometer was not malfunctioning, he had been in a form of heavy stasis for a thousand stellar cycles.

He searched his data banks for his last memory. The files were slow to open, but he was able to access a blurred amalgamation of images and sensations. He remembered Megatron. He remembered his clones, and he remembered splitting his shard to power them. He remembered Earth and its moon. Something had happened during the chaos... but it hadn't been Megatron. He bit down the perverse anger and disappointment that bloomed at that thought. But _something _had happened...

His head ached. He raised a hand to the front of his helm and covered the chink there.

It was empty. Everything was empty – his spark chamber, his fuel tank almost, the space in his helm where the shard should be. _He_was empty. He was just as dead as any of the husks surrounding him. He belonged on this scrapheap.

So why the slag was he the only thing moving?

He held his hands in front of his face and flexed his broken claws. He _was _alive. This was no illusion, surely? Primus wouldn't be so cruel.

He shook his head. Primus was just a story for protoforms. The Allspark created him and had kept him alive before. Maybe he still carried some small trace of its energy. He would find out.

Darkness had fully fallen. He sat in pitch darkness save for the dull red illumination of his lone functioning optic. He ran a few scans of the craft he had made his makeshift home. Battle class bomber, Cybertronian build. Far bigger than his own frame – a heavy-hitter, probably looked something like that oaf Lugnut, but larger.

He turned and picked at the wall with one claw, a thoughtful expression on his face. Ancient as the dead bomber must be, there would be some schematic similarities between it and his own system. Desperate times, he thought...

He spent the night working. He took the behemoth mech apart, piece by agonising piece. He used his sensors to seek out useful parts, components that looked as if they had a similar function and a reasonable level of compatibility with his own systems, to replace the pieces he was missing. He pulled bits out with his bare claws, sometimes his teeth. He knelt on one knee, off-balance, and shuffled around on his aft or dragged himself with his hands.

If he could make an army of clones using salvaged parts of the _Nemesis_, then he could slagging well repair his broken body on a planet made from nothing but spare parts. He got to work.

* * *

The salvage ship was a hulking, shuddering monster. A leviathan made of ancient technology and held together by rust and space barnacles, it juddered and lumbered through the murky sky in uneven bursts and shallow swoops as its massive thrusters and hinky anti-grav systems worked themselves to overheating. It had an almost organic shape, like a basking shark or some great, wedge-shaped worm. Beneath its main bulk extended five arms, hinged and jointed, each ending with a pincer-like, three pronged hand. It used these to pick chunks of wreckage from the desert floor. These it lifted into a huge basket-like construction secured to the belly of the ship, where they would be collected by the crew of drones for processing.

Starscream heard it coming a long time before it entered visual range. His sensors, too, had picked up its blurry energy signal – or rather, the blur of the life-forms crewing it.

He had been on the planet for approximately twenty days by Cybertronian reckoning, though the cycles here were longer. The whole planet was as sluggish and slow-moving, as deadened and dull, as the great slug of a ship that now approached the cave in which he hid.

He'd remained in his chosen refuge for most of his time. He had worked first on creating something he could walk on. That had been rudimentary enough work for an engineer of his calibre, and he had set his processor and his energy next to salvaging dregs of fuel from the tanks of the surrounding mechanical carcasses. He had managed to create something akin to a rust-stick by scraping rust from the frames around him, mixing it with drips of oil and his own oral lubricant, and pressing it into shape, but even the sickly, tangy-sweet flavour started to make him feel nauseous after a while. The rest of his time he dedicated to flying.

The thruster wasn't so very difficult. It didn't look like much, and he had stolen most of the parts from the bomber that formed his cave. It was lightweight, however, and he knew it had just enough power to lift him. He had even conducted a couple of tentative test-flights, short and low as they must be with his wings still sadly mangled.

The wings... would not be as simple a matter as the thruster. Without detaching them completely, working on them, and then remounting them onto the central unit on his back, he could hope to do very little. To even do that he would need help. After growing desperate for a while, he had grimly determined that his only hope was the beacon.

He watched the ship's slow, erratic course across the ruddy sky. The big craft didn't even look capable of breaking the atmosphere. "Did they even pick it up...?"

With little enough thought to getting himself pulled apart by greedy salvagers – his weapons were missing, and he hadn't thought to arm himself when he had seemed utterly alone in a lifeless desert – Starscream limped out into the open and waved his arms. When this failed to sway the junk ship's course, he grit his teeth and fired up his newly repaired, newly rebuilt thrusters. He jetted straight up, and tried to use his arms to compensate for the unevenness of his wings. He was wobbling, and he yelled as he began to fall. Growling in grim determination, he angled his feet just so, controlled the thrust, and sent himself in a strong and determined arc toward the ship.

He almost crashed into it. It was turning about toward him, and he was beginning to fall, but he reached out with one hand and latched his claws into the hull before his patchy thrusters could gutter and finally fail. His claws scraped long rents in the brittle hull before he got good purchase and swung himself up. He dug the claws of his other hand in, and hand over hand he climbed up, forcing his thrusters to give him little boosts to keep him going. There was a deck above the pot-bellied swell of the ship's heavy prow, and it was this he reached after grabbing and swinging over a fragile railing. His thrusters hit the floor, and he straightened, his broken, aching claws flexed and ready for battle. If it came to it, they were the only weapons he needed.

The deck was empty. Something that looked like an ancient generator chugged away on the far side and belched thick clouds of black and noxious smoke. Vents and pipes erupted from the grille floor here and there, and emitted heat and vapours from somewhere deep within the ship's bowels.

He took three steps and his inelegantly asymmetrical heels clicked and clanged alternately on the metal deck. Before he could take a fourth, a wide set of double doors to his right swung open. He wheeled around. From the doors issued a gang of four mechs, though the only thing that seemed to differentiate them from the ragged jumble of parts down below was the fact that these unfortunate sparks were moving. The one in the lead was a massive tank of a mech, broader than he was tall, painted in drab camo and built for heavy hitting. Flanking him were two other bots – to the right a slim whip of a mech with a cyberninja's poise but a frame cobbled together from strips and scraps of wire and metal, with a wire grille mask for a face. To the left was a rotund femme in gaudy red and green wielding a long-chained mace. Bringing up the rear, the final member of this sad band of pirates, was a tall, dark mech with broad shoulders and a mean look. One of his optics was patched over with plain matte steel, while the other burned an enigmatic deep green. None of them bore any recognisable crest.

Starscream didn't think for a moment these bots had come to welcome him aboard. He snarled and attacked.

He realised his mistake moments later, when his starved, stiff frame let him down. He was slow, he felt clumsy. The mechs spread out and surrounded him. He lashed out with his fists and claws, but the femme swung her mace and the spikes of it tore into his tender wing and ripped the plating as if it were paper. He screamed and wheeled on her, but the cyberninja darted into his space and his nimble talons poked at sensitive spots on Starscream's back. He felt the flow of fuel in his lines slow and stop, felt his internal systems seize up. Unable to move, he was a sitting duck for the wall of a mech, the camo bot bigger than Strika, to mow him down and bear him to the floor. He yelped as his damaged back hit the grating, and his fans stalled. He lay, winded and paralysed, pinned by the immense and painful weight of the brute on top of him.

Humiliated and in danger, Starscream fought to get himself moving again. His frame would not obey, even when the behemoth clambered off him and allowed his intakes to cycle again. The three grunts stood over him and all he could do was gaze helplessly up at them with a pained look. He watched as they stood aside for the dark mech. Starscream met this one's single optic, but he could not read the bot's grave expression.

The mech nudged his chassis with one toe.

"Never thought to find a live one this far out." The mech leaned over him. His vocals were deep and slow. He walked around Starscream and the other bots moved back to give him space. They all held their silence, as though waiting like eager dogs for his next commands. The tall mech crouched and ran a hand over the brand on Starscream's wing. Starscream shuddered at the unwanted and intimate touch. The brands were sensitive, even after all these millions of years.

"Don't touch me," he hissed, but the big mech simply stood and turned to his cohorts.

"Take him below decks."

The femme spat on the deck, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, "We'll take him for processing."

"No." The leader held up his hand. His manner was calm and quiet, understated, and he spoke softly and slowly. Every mech's attention hung on him, even Starscream's. "...I want him online. Have him... repaired. Make him functional. I want him like new."

The others looked to him and nodded their assent. The big mech nodded in return, solemnly.

Starscream hissed and managed to twitch a hand. He grabbed the mech's ankle. "Who... who the slag _are _you?"

The big mech – and it was obvious to Starscream he was the captain of this ugly ship – looked down at him. There was a long pause before he answered. "I have many designations. To you, I will be Driver. _Decepticon_."

With that, he turned and paced back inside the darkness of the ship. The behemoth and the femme lifted Starscream by the arms.

"He's dead weight," the femme grumbled. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant, a striking contrast with her mismatched, heavy frame.

"He'd be easier to carry if he _was_," said the ninja with a smile in his hard, nasal voice, even though he wasn't doing any of the lifting himself. "We could take him to pieces right here and carry a chunk each."

"Whiplash, work your magic on him or I'll cut _you _into chunks," the femme snapped. The behemoth remained silent, and Starscream sagged, heavy and awkward, between them.

The ninja, Whiplash, sighed. Starscream tried to recoil as he leaned in and touched him, and again he felt the invasive prodding of narrow claws at key points on his frame. A moment later he felt the flow of energy in his system resume its normal, if sluggish, movement and pace, and feeling returned to his legs. He was able to stand on his own, even walk. Before he could get any opportunistic ideas, however, the femme produced a set of heavy-duty stasis cuffs and clapped them on his wrists. She secured his arms tightly behind his back. Starscream growled and tried to twist free, but with a heavy hand on each of his shoulders, the ninja in front of him, and he himself unarmed, he knew when to strategically stand down. He was far from captured, he told himself. Perhaps he should play along. They would repair him, and this junker might well be his ticket off this spark-forsaken rock after all.

Step by clumsy, fitful step, he limped his way into the ship, marched by the solid mechs on either side of him and led by the slender, spindly frame of Whiplash in front. The shadow of the ship's interior swallowed him, and the heavy doors swung closed.

* * *

He was taken deep, deep below decks. The ship resounded and echoed with the ominous sounds of churning, clunking machinery – disassembly lines, the roar of furnaces, the rip and squeal of tearing metal. Starscream kept his wing tilted down, and his functioning optic burned bright and alert. Every open door, every corner, he craned his neck to see as much as he could. He wanted to know the territory.

Eventually they entered a chamber that looked a cross between a workshop and a medical bay. It was dark and close, lit with flame-coloured lighting strips and the smouldering of a furnace on the far wall. In the centre of the room was a metal slab attached to a cog-like system of machinery which Starscream assumed was used for altering the height and angle of the berth. Around the edge of the room, workbenches were stocked with the ghostly shapes of spare parts, arranged haphazardly, whilst the vast array of tools were lined up with stark and surprising fastidiousness on their trays and in their cabinets. He balked and swallowed at the saws and picks and torches.

He was thrown onto the repair berth face down. He grunted, and started to fight his way up, but the femme's mace came down on his back and he yelped and went still. There was a click, and a current suddenly ran from the wrist cuffs into his whole body, disrupting his sensors and scrambling the motion centres in his CPU. Stasis cuffs. He went stiff again. Dead weight. As he slumped on the hard metal berth, his optic focused on a dark stain that might once have been the fresh magenta of energon, spread out in a splash pattern.

Heavy hands came down on his wings and shoulders and hauled him around onto his back. He stared at the ceiling. For the first time since this ordeal began, he started to feel afraid. He didn't show it, and he set his jaw and remained fierce and immovable. Even as the first saw screamed to life. He kept the image in his processor of the captain, Driver, that strange, quiet mech with the green optic and the smooth, soft vocals who had ordered him to be _fixed up_.

A new bot entered the room. Starscream was just able to swivel his optic enough to see her enter. Another femme, but smaller and curvier than the bitch with the mace, this bot had a sleek purple paint job with simple chrome trim. A ground mech – there were wheels in her feet and forming part of her shoulder joints – she had a light step and golden optics. At her hips she wore a kind of utility belt that glittered with points and blades. Her hands were small, and her fingers, though blunted like an Autobot's, were thin and long. She approached the repair berth with her hands on her waist. Her expression became subtly keener as she made a visual assessment. Starscream felt her scanners swipe over him, a feeling like a shiver, and his frame instinctively tried to flinch. The cuffs prevented it, and he was reminded again of his new-found and horrifying vulnerability.

"New tech?" the medic asked.

"Captain wants him repaired."

"I can see why. Mm, he's a nice build..."

"I can _hear you_," Starscream snapped.

"Oh, do we have a live one?" The medic placed a hand on the berth by Starscream's head, above his wing, and leaned over him. "My name's Graft. Pleased to meet you. That's Whiplash," she nodded toward the ninja, who was lurking in a shadowy corner with his arms folded. "This is Maul, and the big one," she nodded toward the hulking combat model, "is called Dredge. May we have the pleasure of your designation, sir?"

"Take these cuffs off me and I'll think about it," Starscream said.

"Tempting. How do I know you're not going to rip me to shreds with those claws of yours?" The femme fiddled with some tools on a low bench by the berth-side. She turned to the other bots and gestured with her head to dismiss them. They filed out.

"Hurt me and I _will _rip you to shreds."

She laughed softly. "The Captain says repair you, so repair you is what I'll do. But I can't guarantee it won't hurt."

Starscream grunted. "I can take pain."

"I'm sure you can, but I don't want you screaming the place down, so..." Suddenly there was a hypo in his neck. He felt the sting, arched and began to cry out some obscenity, but the nanites worked too quickly. The last thing he saw before the darkness of stasis took him was Graft's striking face looking down at him with a sphinx-like smile, her golden optics glowing like burning embers.


	2. Driver

Starscream awoke. It seemed his whole life was bleak awakenings these days.

This time he was not on a junk heap, but lying on a soft berth. He almost didn't recognise the sensation. He was spread out on his back, and his wings... his wings!

He lurched into a sitting position and twisted, trying to see. His wings had been repaired! He flexed them experimentally, and then hissed at the twinge of pain in the base joints. They were still tender. He marvelled at the near invisible weld line across his previously broken wing. Where had they found the parts? But then he realised: it was _his _wing. The brand was still in place.

The other wing had been beaten smooth, buffed, and his whole frame repainted. He must have been under for a long time, for the extent of his repairs. The thought made him feel slightly sick – he seemed to be sleeping his whole life away now. Or his un-life. Whatever he was living, now.

The colours were a touch gaudier than his previous deco, but anything was better than raw scratched metal. A new shoulder piece had been added, and his cockpit glass had been replaced with a dark red, almost transparent glass instead of the opaque orange he'd had before. They had touched up his leg and thruster too, buffed the rest of him, and installed a new optic to replace the broken one. He needed a mirror to check if the colour matched. They had even repaired and filed his claws. He flexed them and held them before his face to inspect the work.

He still had no weapons, he noticed. The rest of him, however, was fixed up, just as the medic had promised.

He looked around his new surroundings. He was in a dimly lit room. It wasn't one of the workrooms he'd seen on his way into the ship, nor was it the med-bay where Graft had put him under. He lifted a hand to the side of his neck, but the prick where the hypo had gone in was too small to feel. He was seated on a berth, a real one with thick padding and warm, if coarse, coverings. The room's furnishings were many and peculiar. Every surface held a clutter of knick-knacks, weapons, and trophies. There was one port-hole. He slid off the berth and gingerly tested his weight on his newly repaired thrusters. He crossed to the window. He was startled to see the starry blackness of space instead of the endless burnt orange of the scrap pile. He hadn't been sure this creaking old craft was even space-worthy.

On a sideboard an oval tray of beaten, polished metal had been set out with... were those energon goodies? Primus, he hadn't seen those since he left Cybertron. His optics round, he descended upon the treats like a ravenous cyberwolf. He grabbed the small, sweet confections with both hands and pushed them into his mouth. The taste was so intense to his starved sensors he closed his optics and actually _moaned _as he swallowed the first bite. It was too heady, and after half a plateful his fuel tank churned with the unexpected influx of rich fuel. He reluctantly stopped eating, licked his lips, and kept his optics closed.

He was still sucking sweet, sticky juice from his talons when the door slid open with a soft hiss.

"I'm glad you liked the sweets," came a smooth, quiet voice. Starscream bristled and his optics snapped open. His wings pushed back as he turned around.

"You really shouldn't have gone to so much trouble," Starscream said. He offered Driver a slick smirk, bravado to disguise his unease.

"Hm." The tall, slender mech stepped into the room and the door shut behind him. Starscream took a note of the bot's weaponry – an independently targeting shoulder-mounted cannon that looked like it'd been stolen from another mech's artillery; nothing else visible. Who knew what other trinkets he was hiding on that odd, strangely elegant frame? The look on Driver's long face was blank, almost grim, but his optic was dark and intent, the colour of deep organic forests.

"Am I being treated to the Captain's chambers, then?" Starscream said lightly. He watched Driver as he moved forward. They stood an arm's length apart. Starscream stood still and refused to move back. Driver was as tall as he was. Maybe he'd been a 'Con in another life. Starscream felt like he had been a 'Con in another life himself.

"Would you have preferred the med-bay cot? I could have Graft strap you down-"

"This is fine," Starscream cut in. He flicked his wings, flexed them, and gently fanned them forward and back, feeling the tension, the movement, testing to see if they felt right. "I guess I should thank you for repairing me."He looked at his wing. "Where did you find it...?"

"We've had that for stellar cycles," Driver said. He moved past Starscream, and the seeker almost attacked until he realised the other mech was reaching for the plate of energon sweets. Driver picked one up in his claws and popped it into his mouth. "Mm. Picked these up on Andala."

Starscream tilted his head. That name sounded familiar.

"My wing," he reminded Driver. The mech was too close. Starscream leaned his aft and one hand on the edge of the sideboard and adopted a nonchalant pose.

Driver met his optics. "It was in the scrap-heap three stellar cycles ago. I had it mounted on one of the workroom walls."

Starscream's lines froze. "I'm glad you didn't melt it down for the metal."

Driver only nodded. "Have a seat." There was nowhere to sit aside from the floor or the berth. Starscream's lip curled.

He slid out from between the sideboard and the captain, and moved toward the berth. His processor was operating quickly and efficiently, boosted by the fast fuel of the goodies he had wolfed down.

"I knew it was something I had to keep when I saw that brand," Driver said. His tone was flat and ambiguous, but it sent chills down Starscream's spinal strut. He turned to look at the other mech with an arched brow. Driver stood where he had left him, head tilted slightly to the side, single optic vivid in the gloaming. Starscream felt like he was being inspected, being studied. "Only a thousand stellar cycles since the end of the war but already your kind are harder to find than nova pearls."

"My kind?" His processor captured that – a thousand stellar cycles since the end of the war. The blur in his memory became clearer, and the reading on his chronometer started to make sense.

"Decepticons," Driver said. "Dead or imprisoned or underground... exiled to the farthest rim of the galaxy and beyond." He moved forward with very slow, measured steps. Starscream sat on the edge of the berth with his elbows on his knees and his shoulders forward. "Tell me your designation."

"Your medic asked me the same."

"It's only courteous to give your name to the ones who saved you. You are in our debt, after all. In mine."

Starscream snorted and laughed. "You gave me my wings back. For that, I can thank you." He rose to his feet. "I'll repay you your debt." Face to face with Driver, the mech's stare was unnerving but far from terrifying. This bot was small-time, Starscream saw that now. A salvager, a thief and petty trader who fancied himself a pirate. Starscream had met worse mechs than he. Starscream _was _worse than he. If he had his spark still, it would be blacker than this mech's cold and guttering core. "My designation is Starscream."

He saw the flicker in Driver's otherwise impassive faceplates. He saw the small flare of light – of greed, avarice, pride and hunger – flash in the single optic. It made him smile. So mechs did still remember his name.

"A pleasure."

"I'm sure it is," he said. He placed a hand on the centre of Driver's chest – and pushed gently. Driver hesitated and then stepped back. Smart mech.

Driver cycled a deep intake, and then started to move toward the door. He paused before he reached it and cast a lingering look over his shoulder. "Help yourself to the rest of the energon things. My crew gathers in the mess in two joors. You are welcome at my table."

Starscream's fuel tank growled in response, and he hoped Driver hadn't heard. He'd been living off slag for far too long.

"How _gracious _of you. If only there were something I could offer in return," Starscream fished, deadpan. He was gratified to see the stony-faced captain actually crack the tiniest of smirks.

"I'm sure I can find something." With that he turned and exited the room. Starscream listened for the click of the lock, and frowned when it didn't come.

"Hm." He crossed back to the port-hole. Anonymous stars drifted by in featureless black. He could be anywhere. He needed to learn more before he launched himself out into that unknown. Without a spark or shard he was vulnerable, and it shook him more than he cared to admit. He could no longer afford to throw himself into danger without a thought to his own survival. He would learn from his past mistakes. He would _survive_.

* * *

Starscream soon discovered why Driver had thought it safe to allow an infamous Decepticon the free run of his ship. Automated gun turrets were mounted at practically every corner, high up near the ceiling. Starscream spent some time inspecting one – without getting too close, of course. It seemed to operate on a motion sensor, though he wouldn't be surprised if there was a proximity sensor equipped as well.

He noted the information for later and filed it away. For now he wanted to explore the ship. If he was to be a prisoner – Driver's "guest" – then he would take advantage of that situation.

He wandered down. The close heat of the furnaces and engines and the ever narrowing hallways made him edgy, but he wanted to get the lay of the ship. He found Dredge beating out metal plates by a furnace. The big mech paid him no attention, and didn't even look up. On the shelves lining the room jars and canisters held strange substances and shapes. He picked up a small vial that caught his optic. He read the label, scrawled in faded glyphs in an ancient dialect. He slipped it into his sub-space.

Deeper in the maze, Maul was practising with a heavy war hammer in a spacious, high ceilinged chamber. Whiplash was her sparring partner. When Starscream lingered at the door, leaning nonchalantly on the uneven frame, the cyberninja's optics caught him. Whiplash turned his ugly masked face toward him. Maul tried to use this lapse in his concentration to land a blow to his helm, but the lithe mech slithered out of the way, danced into a turn, and struck the femme across the back of the neck with the slim baton he was using in place of his chain weapon. Maul stumbled and growled out a rough curse. Whiplash ignored her, and the grumpy femme followed his optics.

"Want to spar, Decepticon?" Whiplash said.

"Hardly a fair fight," Starscream said. He leaned against the door frame and folded his arms, weight on one foot. "I'm not even armed."

"Big mech like you doesn't need to be," Whiplash said. He twirled the baton around his spindly hand.

Starscream had always had a problem backing down from a challenge. He stepped into the room.

"What say you to the two of us against yourself?" Starscream bristled as Maul moved behind him. She still had that war hammer in her hands. With his weapons this wouldn't even be a fight, but he felt naked without his pulse cannons. He wondered if the weapon in his throat was still functional. It wasn't worth a gamble...

"What is this?"

Starscream stiffened instinctively. Those smooth vocals again. _Dammit_...!

All three of them turned. Was this mech stalking him now, as well as holding him prisoner? Starscream tried to remind himself that Driver had saved his life... for whatever that was worth.

"I won't have any damage done to this one," Driver said to his lackeys.

Whiplash and Maul stood down. Starscream cycled a theatrical sigh and shrugged. "Sorry, bots. I'll have to save that lesson for another time – _el capitan _wants you in one piece, I'm sure." Their time would come.

"Cook is serving," Driver said. He jerked his head to say _follow_, and left. Starscream glanced at the other two bots, and then realised the signal had been for him. He sighed and left the room.

* * *

The mess hall was the largest indoor space Starscream had seen in the odd old ship. A wide, tall room with a single row of tables down the centre with benches to sit on, with an adjoining galley. He met the final member of Driver's crew, aside from the worker drones below – he never learned his real designation, if he had one, as the crew referred to the stooped old drone only as Cook. An ancient, primitive model, Cook served up their fuel without a word. There was an old-fashioned recharge dock affixed to the back wall of the galley. Starscream shook his head. He hadn't seen that kind of tech in millennia.

He let his food be brought to him. He picked the place at the head of the table before Driver could take it, and lounged in the only real seat like a lord in his throne. Driver watched him steadily, and then wordlessly took a seat to Starscream's left. Cook set their fuel before them. Starscream noticed Driver got the king's portion. He was king on this meaningless little barge, Starscream supposed. He wondered how far from Cybertron they were. His sensors were too rusty and disoriented to get a good reading, he needed some local star-charts.

The rest of the paltry crew assembled a little further down the table. Cook didn't eat with the rest of them, and instead retreated silently, joints creaking, to the kitchen.

Starscream didn't wait for permission to begin. The fuel was unlike he had ever tasted – he had to stop himself from moaning as he had done with the goodies earlier. It was embarrassing, really. He guessed he hadn't realised half of how hungry he had been, or just how low on power his system was. He wondered if he might have a problem retaining or processing fuel and power without an alternate source – spark or shard. It wouldn't stop him for long, though. It seemed, more and more lately, that nothing did.

Driver's optic was on him the whole meal. Conversation was stilted. Maul, Whiplash, and Dredge chattered amongst themselves in hushed voices, which left Starscream with only the captain for company, and Driver was a taciturn, solemn mech.

"So, don't you have anything stronger than this?" Starscream said, and casually gestured to the small cube of motor oil that nonetheless tasted like an elixir of life from Primus himself. For what the seeker had in mind he needed high-grade.

"For special occasions, yes," Driver said.

"Isn't this a special occasion?" Starscream placed his elbows on the table and leaned closer to the quiet mech. He offered a sly smile. "I know it's _my _lucky day. Saved from the scrap heap, from starvation and rust... And what about you? Didn't you pick up a prize?"

Driver's optic narrowed a fraction and Starscream wondered if he'd pushed too far too soon. But then the grave mech raised a hand in a signal and said, "Cook, two cubes of the Mareenian blend."

Inwardly, Starscream smirked in sweet satisfaction.

* * *

Joors later, the rest of the crew had retired for the night. Starscream and Driver remained at the head of the table, slumped good-naturedly over a forest of empty cubes and bottles, the scent of highly refined, potent energon in the air. Unsurprisingly, Starscream had found out Driver was a maudlin drunk. However, his glossa was looser when he was intoxicated.

"So... why don't we take this back to your chamber? Or should I say _our _chamber... I'm your bunk-mate now, aren't I?"

"Mm..." Driver looked at him and blinked slowly. "I had that wing..." His gaze shifted to the appendage in question, which twitched in reflex. "For so long. I knew the mech it belonged to would be somewhere in that scrap pile."

"Mm, uhuh. Must be destiny," Starscream said. He rose to his feet and swayed. He immediately felt light-headed and had to lean on the other mech's shoulder. His empty tank and long-starved system had soaked up the high-grade like a sponge, and now he was suffering the effects. He had a stupid, faint smile on his face and, though his vision blurred and spun, he was feeling good. Glad to be alive. He just needed to keep his wits long enough to _stay_alive.

Driver took gentle hold of his wrist and stood. They were standing too close, Starscream half draped across the other mech's shoulders, and only half on purpose.

Somehow they made their stumbling way back to Driver's rooms. This time Starscream heard the lock.

They fell to the berth with quiet laughter, a tangle of limbs. Driver's frame felt hard and cold against Starscream's own, his angles alien, his fingers sharp. He shifted onto his back to ease the angle of his wings. Driver propped himself up on his hands and leaned over him. They stared each other in the optics for several beats.

Starscream broke the silence. "Got any more?"

"...A special blend."

Starscream smiled crookedly. "Perfect."

He stayed where he was as the other mech moved away to fetch the "special" stash. He yawned and glanced out of the port-hole. The sight of the stars sobered him a little.

Driver returned with two cubes of energon so dark it was almost black. He set one cube on the edge of the berth and kept the other as he crawled back into place. His movements were fluid and predatory. Starscream leaned up. Driver had uncapped the cube and now tilted it to Starscream's lips. Starscream smiled as some of it spilled. The taste was strong and heady, but he took only a little. The rest ran down his chin and into his throat cabling. He tilted his head back.

Drived ducked his head, and Starscream thought he was going to lick, but he held back, hovering just a breath away from the smooth, wet metal.

He slid his hand down Driver's arm to his hand, the hand holding the cube. Curling his body so he could lean up again, he raised the cube to Driver's mouth and encouraged him to drink. Driver sipped, but didn't seem interested in drinking more. Thinking quickly, Starscream pulled Driver's hand aside and pressed his lips to his.

Driver's kiss was thin-lipped and hard. But then he pushed Starscream down into the berth and his pointed glossa pushed into Starscream's mouth. Starscream pulled the small, ancient vial from his sub-space, unstopped it with his thumb, and fluidly poured it into Driver's cube, all in one quick set of movements that the other bot never even noticed. When Driver pulled away from the kiss his optic was dark, forest green, a throbbing and unsettlingly organic colour. How could his expression be so grim and yet so intent at the same time? Starscream swallowed and pushed up. Driver let him rise, and he twisted, half crawled, and reached for the other, the untouched, cube.

"This one's all mine," he said, uncapping it with a sharpened thumb. He held Driver's intense gaze as he drank deeply. Driver did the same, Starscream was relieved to see. He watched the dark liquid pass between his lips. The energon was choking in its potency, but Starscream would stay awake out of sheer force of will if he needed to.

When Driver had finished half his cube, Starscream crawled back to him and pressed close. He let the mech loom over him, and spread his thighs on either side of Driver's narrow hips. He wondered how such a tall mech, who gave the impression of size and power, could be so spindly and slender. Driver went for a kiss but Starscream, wary of the poison, turned his head and went for the throat instead – a wet, suckling kiss that had the older mech shivering. Driver felt more relaxed, more pliant, the more he drank. Starscream hoped it would be enough. He licked Driver's audio.

"Gonna tell me where this ship is headed?" he said softly into the sensor. Driver grumbled something and groped Starscream's wing. Starscream rolled his hips as an encouragement, as a prompt.

"Old trading post... mm." Starscream guided Driver's hand gently, encouraged him to take another sip. Some of it spilled onto Starscream's cockpit. "Naresus IV."

"Mm... I hear it's lovely this time of cycle," Starscream murmured, processor racing. He had heard of Naresus IV, and it was then that the mention of Andala clicked into place, finally, with pleasing, startling clarity. Both were infamous slave trading stop-offs. The markets on Naresus IV were supposedly half the size of Kaon each.

He supposed he should be grateful he got to remain in one piece before they sold him.

He bit at Driver's audio. What he really needed were star charts and access codes, security passes for the turrets on board and passwords to enable him to fly this heap of junk. He wasn't a mech designed for interstellar flight under his own power, and besides, his fuel tank didn't carry enough to keep him going for such vast distances of flight. If he tried to escape _without _a ship, most likely he would end up floating, powerless and starving, immobile, somewhere in the featureless black with no mech to call upon for help.

He kissed Driver hard. Straddling the grim mech, he kept his thighs tight against Driver's hips. He felt the heat of the captain's interface array beneath the dark grey plating, felt the gentle pressure of a spike pushing up against its cover between his legs. He ground down for good measure, just to get the poor mech good and dizzy.

Driver's hands were on his thighs, but his grip was loose and faltering. He was going. Starscream leaned down and fanned his wings up high, then out to their full breadth. He saw Driver's optic follow their movement, though there was a glazed look in it now. He felt a little of the effects himself, from the kiss, but he swallowed hard and focused. He rocked his hips.

"You saved my life," he said, his voice a low, soft purr. "You gave me my wings back. Maybe I owe you for that. I don't like to be in any mech's debt..."

Driver gave him a questioning look, though his aspect was sleepy. Starscream could drop the act soon.

"Here's the deal. In return for my wings, I'll let you live."

Driver frowned, his claws tightened on Starscream's thighs, and he opened his mouth to speak. Before he could get out a word, however, the nanites Starscream spiked his drink with took full effect and he slipped under, into a heavy stasis. His emerald optic went dark grey, and his frame relaxed and stilled.

Starscream watched him for a beat. The berth was rumpled, and the cubes had spilt dark energon all over the once clean sheets. The room was quiet. There was no Dredge breaking the door down, no suspicious listeners at the door.

Satisfied, Starscream set to work. Still sitting astride Driver's hips, he extended his own arm and pulled a tiny, thin cable from beneath a small cover on the inside elbow. He unreeled this cable, and found a corresponding socket in Driver's arm. He plugged it in.

This was illegal, of course. But he was a Decepticon. All he wanted was a few little files, after all.

He closed his optics and entered Driver's CPU. He spent a few kliks sifting through to the right set of files, ignoring anything superfluous, especially avoiding the surface thoughts which were all about him. He caught fleeting images that disturbed him – him in a slave collar, or spread on a disassembly berth split into so many separate parts but somehow still online, or pinned to the workroom wall where once only his wing had been. He shuddered and shouldered past them.

He found the files he needed behind a rudimentary encryption which he was able to break through with ease. He copied the lot, saved it all to his own drive, and then withdrew from the captain's system. He unplugged, reeled the cable back into his arm, and resealed both his socket cover and Driver's. Then he got up from the berth. He looked at the mech, slumbering, so unknowing. Would he even remember? Starscream didn't care. He would come back to deal with him later.

He disconnected Driver's shoulder-mounted cannon with brute force, and spent a moment engineering a rough trigger mechanism from the raw wires where it had connected to the mech's frame.

He would keep his word, he would let Driver live. But that didn't mean he could say the same for the mech's sorry crew.

Starscream exited Driver's rooms and locked the door behind him using codes filched from the captain's own system. There was a gun-turret mounted at the corner junction a few paces away. Starscream watched it. Experimentally, he held out a hand and waved. The muzzle tracked the movement, but didn't fire. He wondered if the ship had to be on alert before the internal defences would activate.

Starscream frowned, and considered. If he opened fire, he would be vulnerable. He sub-spaced the cannon and, cautiously, stalked below the turret and past it.

He headed for the bridge.

The crew had retired for the night-cycle, and Starscream had no idea where to find their quarters. He supposed they would creep out eventually, when they realised their ship had been redirected. So, when he made it to the bridge, he gave a cursory check to make sure he was alone there, and then locked the heavy double-doors that were the room's only entrance. Thinking twice, he also barred the doors with a thick metal pipe, ripped from some kind of cooling assembly on one wall.

He entered Driver's pass-codes into the central control terminal. A holo display brought up star-charts of the surrounding area and pinpointed places of interest – space ports, populated planets, etc. He wasn't far from Naresus IV after all. Maybe he should visit and pick himself up a bargain.

Or better yet, he could stop off for fuel and information at that space port in the planet's outer orbit. He smiled.

He had been out of it for too long and what he needed, now he had transport, fuel, and a weapon, was information. He could try interrogation, but that took time and effort, and besides he would need to find someone suitably knowledgeable. It was easier to find a cosy Neutral bar and simply get chatting. The space port's name, according to the chart, was Arqa-Dia. An ancient hunk of pre-war tech, most likely. Just the sort of shady stop-off he was looking for.

He set a course and relaxed into the captain's chair. He had locked Driver's chamber door from the outside while he was still under. Later, he would return and carry him to the nearest airlock. Some freighter would pick him up one day. Maybe. Starscream didn't care.

After a couple of quiet joors he drifted off. Recharge came disconcertingly easily, even though he fought to stay awake. The chair wasn't even comfortable – it almost made him wish he'd let Driver have his way if it meant Starscream could have slept in his berth.

He awoke with a start to the sound of hammering on the door. He twisted around. The double-doors were buckling around the pipe he'd used to bar them. Dredge, probably, or maybe Maul. There was still no alert siren.

Starscream narrowed his optics and turned to the control terminal. He scrolled through screens until he reached the area he needed, then keyed in several codes gleaned from Driver's head. Half a klik of flurried keystrokes, hurrying as the doors started to disintegrate under the repeated blows, and then a triumphant grin as he tapped the last symbol. A rough staccato resounded throughout the ship – in the corridor outside the bridge the rapid gunfire formed a sharp rattle, followed by the crash of a large mech slumping to the floor. He knew that the scene was repeated across the ship. His visual display on the terminal showed him four spark signals, abruptly terminated. He counted them off on his talons – Maul, Dredge, Whiplash, Graft. Anything beyond the bridge with a spark was a threat, or so he'd told the ship's computer. Cook would be safe in his kitchen, to feed Starscream his fuel, and so too the drones down on the disassembly lines and in the salvage rooms, the engine rooms, everywhere that kept the slag ship running.

A turret in the corner of the bridge tracked him, and he stared into the muzzle. He spent a few kliks reversing what he'd done and powering down the internal munitions altogether. He couldn't afford a malfunction.

It was then that he noticed the blinking amber warning light in the corner of the screen. He tapped it, and a display expanded to fill the screen. A single escape pod had been jettisoned.

He shifted back to the spark readings, and homed in on Driver's quarters. Nothing.

Well. Let the old mech run.

His processor shifted gears. There was nothing he could do about Driver now, nor was he interested in tracking the mech. He was neither an ally nor a threat. He sat back down and relaxed once more. The doors to the bridge remained locked and barred, crumpled as they were. He would have the drones drag the bodies away and strip them for parts. Those bots were nothing to him – he had kept his end of the deal.


	3. Once a Decepticon, Always a Decepticon

Starscream docked the pirate ship at the space port without a hitch. It wasn't the kind of place to require a thousand security clearances and pre-booked docking slots, so Starscream simply lumbered the big craft into the nearest available space. He had never been very good at parking, so he scraped the edge of the bay with an audio-shaking screeching of metal, but no mech reprimanded him for it.

It didn't take him long to find a suitable bar. Located in the underbelly of the station, the air within was fogged with acrid smoke and the smell of oil and energon. He sauntered in as if he owned the place, ordered a high-grade with Driver's credits, and took a place at the counter. He crossed his legs, surreptitiously admiring his new thrusters in the dim and smoky light. Graft had done a reasonable job. Maybe while he was here he would get a few touch-ups to neaten and sleeken his newly patched frame, pick up some new cannons and bombs, that sort of thing...

He was still scoping the bar when he sensed a mech behind him. He turned and set his drink down on the bar top.

"Can I help you?"

The mech grabbed his wing. Starscream squawked and shot to his feet, wrenching the sensitive appendage from the crude stranger's mitts. He drew Driver's cannon from his subspace and jammed it into the stranger's chassis. He activated the trigger, and the mech's abdomen was vaporised. He crumpled to the floor.

The bar was silent. All optics were on him.

"What?" He spread his arms, blaster still smoking. "You don't just grab a mech's wings in public! Especially without asking!"

"It wasn't your wings he was interested in, _Decepticon_," said a gruff-voiced femme in the corner. Starscream focused his optics on her as the crowd grew restless. His wings twitched. _Don't tell me every bot around here has the same fixation with these slagging brands as Driver does...!_

More and more of the patrons were rising to their feet. Starscream decided this was not a good time to stay and chat. He twirled his weapon once, gave the crowd an apologetic, sharp-toothed grin and turned. He shot at the rows of high-grade cubes behind the bar – highly volatile, refined energon that exploded given the slightest instability of movement or temperature. He kicked into flight as the cubes ignited, giving himself just enough of a boost, enough speed, to flee the bar before the cloud of flame and debris engulfed him. He hit the ground outside and rolled. His wing screamed in pain, but he sprang to his feet and kicked off, this time flying straight up into the open space outside the bar. There was a central shaft through the station's core – part ventilation space, part transport conduit – and the walkway outside the bar opened straight onto this. Mezzanines surrounded it, and it seemed to stretch the height and depth of the station. It was lit only with the pinprick lights of the surrounding homes and businesses, and was thick black above and below. He zoomed straight up, tailed by the pink-flaring wave of the blast.

* * *

Some time later, Starscream perched on a narrow girder high above the main thoroughfare in the port. His frame sported a few new singes and holes. He rued the damage to his fresh paint-job more than he actually hurt, but he was still sorely aware of his unfamiliar vulnerability. A tour around the station and he had learned the hard way that showing a Decepticon brand was bad news in this neighbourhood.

This was supposed to be Neutral territory, but if what Driver had implied was true, then "his kind" was rare enough to be a pretty prize when you were stalking a space port in orbit of one of the biggest slaver settlements in the 'verse.

Starscream hunched his shoulders. Up on his aerial perch, he could hunker down in the shadows near the roof and watch the crowds, while they couldn't see him. He didn't even know if he showed up on scanners any more. His own sensors certainly couldn't pick up a signal.

He desperately needed proper weapons, more credits, and above all, information. It was going to be fragging difficult to do what he needed to do if he couldn't even walk around freely without getting grabbed and collared.

He rested his chin on his hand. What was the point in being online if he couldn't _do _anything?

With a sullen sigh, he dropped from his seat and swooped over the panicky crowd. He saw organics in amongst the Cybertronians, techno-organics, humans, as well as other aliens. The sight of the revolting creatures only made his mood darker. He returned to the _Reaver_, his stolen pirate ship, picked his way through the drones, and locked himself in Driver's quarters to recharge.

* * *

His problem was solved three solars later by the appearance of a familiar, if unexpected, face.

Starscream had been cruising above the vast, arena-sized hall adjacent to the port when he saw him: a small mech with a blocky build and a cannon as big as he was tall. He had a few new mods on him now – a cannon on the other arm, and some kind of apparatus on his back, but the bright violet optics were the same, as were the swagger and the friendly, inviting, slickly smug smile. Starscream still had his comm frequency.

Starscream stalked him for a while, prowling the aerial catwalks that spanned most of the port and central trade areas. He followed the little mech from afar, watching his movements. Swindle kept to the big trade port on the underside of the station, and the seedy watering-holes that surrounded the area. There was a small slave market adjoining the port – a sort of supplementary enterprise to the city-size markets planet-side, he supposed. Starscream didn't follow Swindle there – there was nowhere to hide, and he was liable to be mistaken for a lot.

After tailing the little mech for two more days, Starscream finally approached him. He waited until Swindle was in a quiet area – a depopulated dock-side catwalk, on his way back from one of the freighters parked there. It was a shadowed, spacious area silent enough for their engines to echo. More importantly, it was away from the prying optics of less scrupulous merchants than Swindle.

Starscream waited until the moment felt right, and then closed in. He dropped from the elevated walkway above the dock-side platform and landed smoothly with the help of his thrusters. Alarmed, Swindle turned to face him. His violet optics widened hugely, and Starscream knew the recognition was instantaneous.

Starscream cocked his head and smirked. "Hello Swindle. What's the matter? You look like you've seen a _ghost_."

* * *

Swindle had a cruiser-class starship docked at the other end of the port, in a private bay. At Starscream's gentle insistence, he had invited the seeker back for a drink and a civilised chat. The room the little merchant led him to was directly off Swindle's own recharge quarters, a roomy cabin fitted with energon cabinets, a wall of surveillance screens, and two comfortable chairs. Starscream perched on one of those seats, a cube of fine fuel in his hand.

Swindle had a cut-crystal tumbler of blended oil, which he swirled in a gesture that made Starscream's plating crawl. Starscream had refused the oil or high-grade. Instead he had a plain cube of mid-grade, which, while still the highest quality, would line his tank without threatening to overcharge him. He sat across from the little mech, elbows on his knees and his shoulders hunched. He felt tired, but he hadn't realised how relieved and happy he had been to see another 'Con until now, when he was finally letting himself relax.

"Starscream, my old friend..." Swindle's vocals were as smooth and oily as Starscream remembered. He was still happy to hear them. "I mean... you _understand_, don't you? I thought you were offline – we _all _did! Otherwise I assure you we would have tried our hardest to free you from-"

Starscream held up his hand. "Save it, Swindle. What I need is information, not excuses."

"...Information?" Swindle looked at him sidelong.

"If you tell me it'll cost me I'll have your helm," Starscream said. "I am your superior officer."

"Ah... right. That's not... _strictly _true any more, now, is it? But, ahah, in the spirit of times past, I'll help you out free of charge."

"You're too kind," Starscream said. The blacked out crest on Swindle's chest-plate had not escaped his notice.

"What do you want to know?"

"I've been dea- … in stasis for a thousand Cybertronian stellar cycles, if my chronometer is right. I need to know what's changed. Where is Megatron? What happened on that mud-ball-?"

Swindle set his tumbler down and gestured for Starscream to relax. "Slow down. Do you mean Earth? The end of it all?" Swindle looked wistful. "I can't tell you what happened on Earth _exactly_– remember, I wasn't even there?"

"Hm."

"I _can_tell you that the old warmonger was taken down by the Prime. Nice mech, really. I sold him a new-"

"Megatron _lost_?"

"Mhmm," Swindle said. "Believe me, it pains my spark to tell the story of our brave leader's defeat." He said this with a hand over his chest, above his spark. Right on top of his blank insignia.

"I'm sure it does. So is he _dead_?" Starscream felt a strange pang at the thought – _he _should have been the one to finish Megatron, not that whelp of an Autobot.

"Oh, no. Not by the last accounts. The Autobots don't like to execute their enemies, do they? They think it's immoral." Swindle took a dainty sip of his energon. "They think it's gentler to imprison them for the rest of their lives."

"You've no sympathy for them, then."

"I was sparked as an Autobot but I've no love for them, no." He cycled a long sigh. "Anyway. _Lord _Megatron was carted off back to Cybertron and thrown in the stockade. As far as I know he's still there."

"For _a thousand stellar cycles_?"

"Oh, he'll be in there for much, much longer than that. They've thrown away the key, he'll be in there till his frame rusts away. It's more humane, you know."

"But..." Starscream couldn't make himself understand. How could Megatron _allow_ himself to be captured like that? Taken alive? Held _prisoner_? "He might as well have given up!" He was disgusted. The old mech had been weaker and more pathetic than even he had ever guessed. "Did no mech try to break him out?"

"Oh, plenty tried. They were captured too, or else killed in the battle. You forget – Cybertron is Autobot territory. The anti-aircraft artillery alone is enough to disintegrate most 'Cons trying to land. They've upgraded a little since the Omega débâcle – they have more than just Maximus now. Their power extends beyond Cybertron, of course – the immediate surrounding territories were Autobot controlled anyway, but the space bridge link with Earth has opened up a whole new area of the 'verse to colonise. Those little organics are getting everywhere, too." Swindle shuddered, and Starscream wrinkled his nose. _Humans_, were they called? "They like stealing Cybertronian technology to develop their own pathetic species." Swindle shrugged. "That in itself isn't so bad – they like Cybertronian weapons, too. And I've branched out..."

Starscream put his cube down, balled his fist, and smacked it into his open palm. "It's simple, then. With Megatron taken, _I _am the leader of the Decepticons. I'll gather the forces again, with your help-"

"I'm... not sure it'll be that easy, Starscream." Swindle waved his hands, indicating the seeker should slow down, back up.

"Why not?"

Swindle took a breath. "When they took Megatron they got Shockwave too, and Lugnut, Blitzwing, and a dozen more officers across the 'verse. Even more were killed in battle. The Autobots had won... I'm not proud to say it, but they really broke us that orbital cycle."

"So you just _gave up_?"

"You say it like we had a choice," Swindle's voice took on a new, serious edge. "After that day the war was officially over, but the stragglers from the _losing_ side still had warrants out for their arrest, and huge prices on their heads. The bounty-hunters had a field day – trust me, I sold them half the weapons they used before they tried to take _me _in too." Swindle grimaced, and Starscream thought he saw the little bot shiver. "After that, well..."

"You deserted."

"Starscream," Swindle laughed incredulously and shook his head. "Decepticon loyalty, coming from _you_?"

Starscream looked away and crossed his arms. "I'm a Decepticon. I hated Megatron, but not the cause."

"Megatron _was_the cause. With him taken, what was left? Just a rabble of misfits and malfunctions with no bot to lead or rally them – a disorganised mob of mechs who suddenly found themselves without a common cause to believe in. The only cause that mattered was survival."

"They have a cause now. They have a _leader _now."

"Hmm..."

"Swear your loyalty to me, Swindle. You've painted over your brands but paint can be scraped off." Starscream stood and started to pace, gesticulating for emphasis. "Brands are permanent – that's the reason _why _'Cons use brands instead of the Autobots' sticky, disposable crests. Once you take the brand you can't go back! Once a Decepticon always a Decepticon."

"Mm..." Swindle watched the seeker with half shuttered, thoughtful optics. "Now, don't get me wrong," he said. "I'm _all for _another war-"

"_Another _war?" Starscream interrupted, spluttering. "This war never ended!"

"Ah... all right. I'm all for continuing the Great War. War is good for business, after all! But you're just one- Sorry, we're just two mechs-... two Decepticons alone. What could we possibly hope to achieve? The Decepticon forces are scattered across the 'verse. Most mechs gave up the brand in the end..."

Starscream tutted in disgust at such cowardice. Many had called him a coward, but he was only a survivor. It was different. He would never do something as craven as _giving up_.

"Starscream... why don't you rest a while?"

"That's _Lord _Starscream to you, Swindle."

Swindle pursed his lips. "..._Lord _Starscream." He stood up and bowed. "I am yours to command."

"My first loyal soldier," Starscream said. "Who would have thought."

"Quite."

Starscream ran a hand over his face. It had all seemed so simple initially. Maybe a temporary disguise might be an idea – but then, how could he expect the 'Cons to rally around and swear fealty to an unknown? No, he had to remain Starscream.

"Well at the very least can you fit me out with weapons?"

Swindle's optics brightened. He opened his subspace drawer and started rummaging around. "_Now_ you're talking my language, Starscream old buddy. Sonic pulse cannons, did you have before? Powerful, but they lack a certain _flare_..." He drew something out. "Might I suggest the null-ray? The perfect balance of style and fire-power-"

"I don't want anything new, I just want my old weapons back."

"Well it's not my fault you left them rusting on a scrap-heap somewhere," Swindle said tartly. "Here, how about this-"

A few kliks later Starscream was well fitted out once again. He even felt generous and paid Swindle for his trouble. He ran an appreciative hand over the sleek new cannon affixed to his arm. He had twin sonic pulse cannons, just as before, though these were a slight bit more compact and slender, even though Swindle assured him they were newer tech and thus would pack even more of a punch than his old ones. He filled his subspace with shatter and cluster bombs. Swindle even checked out his scream cannon, as Starscream had absently begun to call it. It was now charged up and ready to fire, which was a comfort.

"Not bad, not bad..." Starscream unconsciously stood up straighter, his posture and stance stronger now he had his weapons. He felt more powerful, and less vulnerable.

"I must say they suit you wonderfully, Lord Starscream," Swindle said.

"Mm. They cost me enough. I'm hoping you'll pay me back in service."

"Oh, of course." Swindle glanced out the ship's broad window and yawned. Distractedly, he said, "I will pay you back generously."

* * *

Starscream spent the next several orbital cycles recharging in a spare room aboard Swindle's ship. The craft was far larger than he had expected a wheeler-dealer like Swindle to ever acquire, and most of the areas were heavily locked down with a high security clearance. He didn't see Swindle much, and this frustrated him. How was he supposed to work on his battle plans without his one and only soldier?

Instead of pacing the ship for cycles on end, he went back out. He spent some time flying around the station, outside and in, getting the lay of the land, as it were. He avoided entering the planet's atmosphere for now – he wasn't sure if he would be able to get out again, and besides, there was nothing for him there, unless he wanted an army of slaves. Perhaps he should call that Plan B.

He found that, now he was armed, he could move relatively freely in the down-shift in the busy port, and he found himself a ship. He couldn't keep Driver's ancient, ungainly _Reaver _forever. He managed to trade it for a smaller, higher-spec light cruiser, which he optimistically named the Victory. It was a sleek little thing, dark blue-black with pleasingly Decepticon-like spikes and finials.

Next he set to seeking out a crew for her. It took a few weeks more of using Swindle's questionable hospitality before he found a suitable group of affordable mercs to fly and operate the ship, though whether they would prove willing or able to take the brand was another matter, and one he could deal with at a later time.

The rag-tag group he found were almost as suspect as Driver's motley band. The only difference was that Starscream was the one handing out these bots' credits.

His crew consisted of six cut-throat bots scoured from the seedy bars, bustling docks, and dingy underbelly of the station: a slim, violet-plated femme calling herself Rogue; a broad-shouldered and handsome red mech with a scarred face Starscream knew only as Scar; a hunched, grey mute with a missing lower jaw and claws longer than Starscream's they all called Smiler; and a sleek, small, black femme called Needle. The remaining two were towering combat models, brothers in arms and possibly in spark – their moulds were similar, and they seemed to come as a pair. Their designations were Chainlock and Mace. Added to those, he anticipated, was Swindle and his large and no-doubt hideously overpowered ship, and he had the start of the Decepticon army's brand new fleet. He didn't have brands for his crew, but he would have to owe them.

At long last, he deemed himself and his motley band ready to leave the station. He had stayed on for far longer than he'd originally intended, but he had used the time to gather supplies, star-charts and maps, and to plan for battle. He wanted to head for Cybertron, but Swindle insisted that would be suicide. Never one to be put off by a little thing like self-preservation, Starscream had ignored his protests and pre-programmed a course into the _Victory_'s on-board computer in readiness for their departure.

* * *

"Be ready to leave when I give the order."

Starscream's crew exchanged looks and muttered their obedient assent. He was paying them enough, after all. They readied the ship, working at the consoles on the small bridge. "And where the slag is Swindle?"

"I think I saw him out in the port, sir," said Rogue. She was crouched beneath a console, some naked wires streaming from the underside of the terminal as she worked on fixing a glitch in the ship's translation matrix. "In the upper mezzanine level."

Starscream tutted and huffed. "Typical Swindle... We're ready to go and he's coasting the fragging street-side market. I'll go and find him myself."

He swept from the bridge in a percussive clacking of heels.

The crew exchanged glances in the companionable silence in Starscream's wake.

"Do you think he suspects?" Scar said. Chainlock and Mace said nothing, busy sparring and drilling combat forms with each other. Needle chucked and draped herself across the captain's chair, her lithe body sleek black, reflective, and glossy. Smiler's optics burned to watch her, and Scar gave him a disapproving stare.

"That thick-bolted malfunction wouldn't see the obvious if it hit him over the head," Rogue said. She wiped off her hands on a rag and perched on the edge of the terminal she'd been repairing. "He really thinks he can raise his dead army from the wastes of the past..."

"The last Decepticon," Scar said whimsically, his hands on his narrow hips. He had the heroic build of a prime, but no crest to go with it. "It has a ring to it. Almost romantic."

Rogue snorted. "Romance is nice, but it won't put fuel in my tank." She patted her abdomen. "If the little bot pays more, then it's him I'll pledge my loyalty to."

"Until some other poor glitch offers more," Scar laughed.

Rogue smiled. "Exactly."

* * *

Starscream reached the upper mezzanine of the dockside. There was a bazaar of sorts spread out here, on either side of the broad walk way, where street merchants hawked and called out their wares. Starscream curled his lip and strode past, weaving through the crowd and avoiding optic contact with any of the two-cred vendors. He couldn't see Swindle anywhere. He moved on.

Up a broad sloping thoroughfare he found himself on a rooftop sprawl. A forcefield arced above the area, high enough to fly below, but invisible save the occasional crackle of electricity across it. Beyond, the stars shone like white optics in the black sky.

Starscream put his hands on his hips and opened up his internal commlink.

"Swindle," he snapped, after bringing up the merchant's frequency.

"Starscream!" Swindle sounded as though there were no bot he would rather hear from than his good old friend and comrade, Starscream. Starscream wasn't taken in, but Swindle _was _a 'Con all the same. Once and always. "What can I do for you?"

"Where in the Pit are you?"

"Oh...? Oh, well, I'm on my ship, of course."

"_Your_ ship? You were meant to report to me on the _Victory _a joor ago."

"Yes, well... about that."

"...What?" Starscream glanced around the crowd, his optics narrow and bright. Every mech he saw suddenly looked suspicious, even though most of them barely paid him any mind.

"Well... You see, a lot can change in a thousand stellar cycles, and a lot _has _changed since you were, ah, down for the count. War is good for business, true, but not as good as survival. I don't like the odds, Starscream... You and me against the world? That's hardly what I'd call a safe bet."

"What are you saying?" Starscream growled. "You're giving up on me?"

"Now, now, don't misunderstand. But Starscream, the time of the Decepticons is past. You need to wake up and realise that. It was good while it lasted, but... sometimes you've just got to move on."

A shadow fell over the bazaar, and Starscream looked up. Far above, beyond the forcefield, a large battle cruiser hovered – Starscream recognised Swindle's _Lady Luck_.

"See, I've got a good gig going on here," Swindle's voice continued to purr in Starscream's internal receptors. "Naresus IV has the biggest and most profitable slave market this side of the galaxy, second only to Andala, where, by the way, I also have a little business growing. It turns out in peace-time, slaving is almost as good as weapons trading. And I'm not going to let you ruin a carefully nurtured business, no matter how many good times we may have had back when we were comrades. You understand, old mech, don't you?"

Starscream snarled and curled his claws into fists, glaring up the accursed ship. "So you're just leaving me here to rust?"

"Oh no... Oh no, no, Starscream my old buddy! I would never do that to a former comrade. Starscream do you know what they're calling you? _The last Decepticon-! _Isn't that wonderful?"

"Fantastic..."

"Just imagine the price you'd fetch in the slave auctions in the capital."

"Capital...?"

"Arqal, the capital city of Naresus IV. That's where you're going, I'm afraid."

"What?" Starscream squawked when he suddenly felt hands grab his arms. He wrenched free just in time to break the stasis cuffs Rogue tried to lock into place. "Turncoat!" He backhanded the femme but she darted out of the way. Scar was there too, and the twins, and Needle... all of them, here to take him in?

"Your crew... well, they're _mine _now," Swindle drawled over the comm. "Sorry to say, I pay a little better than your mean credits, Starscream. That's the trouble with hired thugs – somebot else can always hire them."

"You... I'll have your helm!" Starscream roared and kicked off from the ground. Scar made a dive for him, and Smiler caught his ankle with those evil claws of his and scored a deep gauge from the knee down, but fortunately not deep enough to damage the thruster's efficiency. Starscream jetted straight up and fired on the forcefield. Energy crackled out in a web shape from the contact point, and Starscream kept up a continuous stream of fire. There were screams and cries from below, the sounds of confused chaos as the forcefield shimmered, crackled, buzzed erratically. It flickered under his onslaught, and with a last burst of power Starscream punched through. The artificial gravity within the dome faltered, and vendors, customers, and wares alike began to rise and float. Screams were swallowed by the void of space as the station's artificial atmosphere leaked out through the breach.

He heard another sound behind him – a quick glance and he saw Rogue, rising on modified boosters after him. He tossed a small bomb at her and she rolled and wheeled away to avoid it.

He was level with the _Lady Luck_'s prow, and he hovered and trained his cannons on the big warship.

"Ah... Starscream? That might not be the wisest choice of action," Swindle said.

Starscream detected movement, and his optics widened as three large cannons extended from the ship's hull, trained themselves on him point-blank, and roared and crackled to life, lurid green light pulsing at their tips.

Starscream shot at the cannons. He managed to short one temporarily, and in the time it took Swindle to curse him for damaging his ship the seeker had transformed and was wheeling swiftly away, arcing between two broad towers and through and around to the other side of the station, his turbines screaming.

The deep shuddering roar of powerful engines told him Swindle was in pursuit, but in such close range to the station the big ship would be slow to chase him. Like slag he was going to let that traitorous malfunction take him and _sell _him...!

He transformed back to root mode, landed on his feet, and skidded along a curving rooftop to pause and look back. As he looked up, Needle descended. Blades spun in her hands and her narrow little thrusters burned blue, her slender wings flared. He cursed her and parried her blade attacks with his gauntlets and cannons. She was small and quick, but he had the advantage in terms of raw strength. She had a limited transwarping ability, which put her behind him just as he was about to strike, but he snarled, used his thrusters for a speed boost, and wheeled on her with a fiery, thruster-powered kick that sent her flying into the vacuum. She gave him a venomous look and disappeared with a silent _pop_.

Starscream laughed in victory and took off at a run, throwing himself into weightless space before the roof curved down too steeply. He was about to transform, when suddenly his optics were blinded by the glare of floodlights full in his face. He lurched backward, thrusters sputtering and arms wind-milling. His optics adjusted as a booming voice rang in his head on an open channel: "Autobot in danger! Have no fear, aid has arrived!"

"What the f-?" Starscream boggled, before recollection hit him like a slap. The beacon. He had been broadcasting that bloody, Allspark-damned coded distress beacon since he woke up on the scrap-heap. He had forgotten about it! And now the twice-fragged Autobot _Guard _had shown up to "rescue" him. "Slag, slag, slag!"

He was about to turn tail and fly back the way he'd come, but the thunderous chug of the _Lady Luck_'s engines made him pause. He looked back and saw the huge black cruiser crest the top of the station, its functioning cannons aimed on him. The Autobot ship seemed to take this as a threat, as it armed and aimed its own artillery in response. An Autobot _battle_ship? Starscream had thought those were rare as Omega.

Before he could make a decision, Needle was there again, popped out of the ether like fragging Skywarp.

"Caught between the smelt and the slagheap, Starscream?" she said with a sharp little grin. He snarled and punched, but she was gone before his blow could connect with her helm.

She was right, though.

He jumped, transformed, and flew below the Autobot cruiser. He didn't get far. He felt a tug and a slowness, a pull on his wings, and his thrusters whined as they worked harder to try to fight through it, past it. He was caught in a tractor beam.

He screamed and cursed, transformed and shot at the accursed Autobot _filth_'s miserable ship.

He heard the heavy pulse and boom of cannons. Swindle's ship blazed with three points of fire. That at least gave Starscream some sense of grim satisfaction. Grind the traitorous glitch down to his base metals, for all he cared.

In a few short kliks, despite all his fighting, he was drawn gently into a spacious, clean, white hangar. A smattering of brightly painted Autobot guards watched his entrance in confusion and shock.

The tractor beam cut out, the forcefield across the entrance reactivated, and the ship's antigrav gear kicked in. Starscream fell to the floor, and looked around.

"...Smelt."


	4. The Last Decepticon

Starscream pulled listlessly at his manacles. Some of the fight had gone out of him after the first few joors, when he had pulled and twisted at them so hard he'd buckled the plating on his gauntlets. His wrists still smarted, and his left hand was crumpled and misshapen. He was prepared to pull his hands clean off if it meant escape, but only as a very last resort.

At first, the Autobots had put Starscream into a small holding cell – a plain, grey box with a recharge cot, a desk, and a fold-away receptacle for waste. They left him on the berth and posted two guards at the door. Starscream battered the door down within minutes, and had almost torn one guard's helm off before the other one raised the alarm. His reinforcements had shocked Starscream into stasis, then locked him in cuffs just long enough to get him moved to this high-security dungeon, somewhere beneath the engine rooms. The walls here were blinding white, so clean and sterile they reminded Starscream of a surgical theatre. He twisted again in his bindings, thinking of his time in captivity at the hands of Autobot medics and scientists who had dug into his processor and used the secrets they'd found to reverse-engineer Jetfire and Jetstorm, the twin abominations.

He was fettered to the wall at wrist and ankle and throat. He felt spread out and vulnerable. The vision he'd seen in Driver's processor flashed up in his mind. Maybe he'd have been better off staying with that creepy old pirate.

The 'Bots had bolted a plate gag over his mouth, and dosed him with nanites after he remained aggressive even after joors of captivity. Occasionally a guard would look in to check he was still online, though he wasn't sure why they seemed to care so much. A Decepticon was a Decepticon, he was sure they would say. What else did the 'Bots used to say? Oh yes, "The only good Decepticon is a dead Decepticon."

Time passed. He was kept hungry, but always fed just enough to stop him from slipping into a hunger-induced stasis. He was forced to remain standing in this same position, and his joints screamed after so long in the same strained pose. He kept his teeth gritted and said nothing.

It might have been joors or cycles, maybe even stellar cycles. There were no windows in the cell, and the lights remained at the same level and hue of brilliant yellow.

He guessed they were taking him back to Cybertron.

He dozed on his feet.

He was awoken abruptly from one such fleeting nap by a stinging and sudden slap to his cheek. He yelped and cursed behind the gag, though the plate metal muted the sound. He jolted when he opened his optics. A big Autobot stood over him, face-to-face. When did they start making Autobots so big? Starscream stared him down.

The mech raised his hand again. This time he held a shock-stick. It came down, white-hot, aiming for a wing-

"Stand down." The command came from behind the thug of a guard. The vocals were smooth and deep, the tone hard. The grim-faced guard gave Starscream a dark look, lowered the stick, and grudgingly stood aside.

The officer was a stocky, solidly build mech painted in garish red and blue. The lower part of his face was hidden by a silver mask. Starscream blinked at him once, then tilted his head.

Beneath the mask, he said, "I _know _you!"

All the Autobot heard was muffled noise, but their optics met all the same. Mutual recognition arced between them. The Autobot's battle-mask retracted.

"...Starscream."

The Autobot's tone was a try at stern, but Starscream heard the wondering question lingering in his voice. Of course – Starscream the Decepticon was dead. This mech probably saw the seeker's grey and lifeless frame with his own optics... before tossing it on the scrap-heap.

Starscream's face contorted into a snarl of hatred and rage behind his mask, and he threw himself forward, straining once again at the unyielding cuffs. The collar restricted his intakes the harder he fought, making his processor spin, but he didn't stop until the guard stuck a hypo in his arm and dosed him with a fresh load of nanites. They seeped into his system like a virus and made his frame feel heavy, his processor slow. His optics dimmed but he never stopped staring at the red and blue 'Bot.

"I see you remember me," Optimus said. His optics were round and a bright, pure blue. His expression was somewhere between sadness and incomprehension.

Starscream stared at him until the silence became loaded. Optimus looked at the guard and gestured. "Take off the gag."

"Sir?"

"Just do it."

The gruff guard roughly unhooked the catches holding the gag in place. Starscream snapped at the mech's hands as the plate was lifted away, but the nanites made him too slow to catch him. The guard raised a hand to retaliate, but one word from the Prime stilled him and sent him sulking to the corner, his back to the wall, guarding the door.

"Do you Autobots treat all your guests so kindly?" Starscream rasped. The collar pressing against his throat made his vocals hoarse and rough.

"Only the most dangerous ones," Optimus said. Starscream searched his face for a flicker of irony and found none.

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

Optimus took a slow breath. His hands were linked behind his back. His frame was bulkier and taller than Starscream remembered.

"...You _are _Starscream?"

"No. I'm a malfunctioning clone gone rogue. I'm a worthless hunk of scrapyard junk only good for parts. I'm a mysterious and expensive pleasure-drone." Starscream's mouth twisted into a mocking grin. "I'm the Last Decepticon."

Optimus's lips pressed into a tight line. "There are plenty of Decepticons where you're going, Starscream. We're taking you back to the Stockade."

"How disappointingly predictable. Going to throw me in there to rust? Well I've already rusted enough for one life-cycle, thank you."

"Where have you been all this time? I saw-"

"You think I give two scraps what you _saw_? And I'm not going to answer any more questions, not even if you turn this pathetic interview into a _proper _interrogation and let your pet over there have his fun. I have nothing to say to the likes of you Autobot scum."

"You'd best watch your mouth, Decepticon!" the guard burst, earning him a disapproving look from his commander.

"...It's not our job to interrogate you, Starscream," the Prime said. "You were broadcasting an Autobot coded signal, so we followed the distress beacon expecting to find an Autobot in trouble. Instead, we found you. You'll be taken back to Cybertron and handed over to the law authorities there. They can ask you all the questions they want to then."

"Hm." Starscream turned his face away and scowled.

Optimus sighed. There was nothing more to say. The pair of Autobots moved toward the door. Optimus turned his head to the guard. "It's a long voyage back to Cybertron," Starscream heard him say in a low voice, before they left the room. "Make him more comfortable. Autobots are supposed to treat their prisoners better than Decepticons do."

* * *

The cell they put him into after that was only a fraction bigger, but they turned the lights off every half cycle so he could get some recharge, and there was a berth against one wall for him to rest on. He was able to walk around the cell freely, though his wrists were still circled with thick white shackles which were connected to each other with a chain. Instead of a heavy door, this cell had a broad force-field, and seemed more like a standard Autobot-style prisoner's quarters.

The berth was a little too narrow to accommodate his full wingspan, but he did what he could. Recharging that night was the sweetest rest he had had in a while.

He was awake when the guard came with his fuel.

The Autobots fed him well, he noticed, now the Prime had put his foot down. He was no longer kept starving, but he was sure they still dosed the energon with sedatives.

The next time he saw the Prime was about three days later, going by his chronometer and the timing of the lights in the cell – on for half a cycle, off for half again.

The brightly coloured mech was flanked by two bigger guards this time, each of them carrying weapons – a sword and a club. He recalled the Prime himself had wielded an axe, and wondered if he had it concealed about his person now. His frame was definitely heavier than it had been back on Earth, kitted out with some newer, more heavy-duty tech. There was some kibble on his back that Starscream was curious to get a look at.

Starscream faced his jailers with a sardonic look. He sat on the edge of the berth with his elbows on his knees and a careless attitude shaping his frame. When he didn't greet or acknowledge them beyond looking them each over in turn, the Prime refreshed his vocals.

"Starscream," he said, awkwardly. The two guards looked on in stoic silence. "You should know it will take forty decacycles to reach Cybertron. Once we get there, you will be handed over to the Elite Guard and tried for war crimes. Most likely the Stockade awaits you."

Starscream sneered. "Tell me something I don't know, Autobot." He had worked out that much for himself, but had not reasoned on the voyage taking so slagging long. Forty decacycles in these four white walls. "Think you could feed me something decent before we get there? Something that's _not _drugged?"

He saw the mech wince. "...The sedatives are to discourage you from trying to escape."

"How thoughtful. A shame you Autofools didn't think of that trick the last time I was captured. It might have spared you some damage."

The Prime looked to his colleagues, and then said quietly, "Leave us. I'll comm you when I'm ready..."

The big mechs looked at their commander, and then at each other. Starscream thought they knew what the Prime had in mind. Starscream narrowed his optics. He didn't think the little mech had it in him.

The guards filed out, and Starscream was left with the quiet Prime who could no longer meet his optics. He sat back, leaned his shoulders and wings against the wall, and stretched out his legs.

"Well," he said, when the Prime didn't seem to want to talk. "Is this the part where you come in here and beat me to show me what a no-good Decepticon's place in the world is? Maybe try to beat some answers out of me?"

"What?" Prime looked up with a start, those blue optics rounded and wide. "No, of course not!"

"Of course not," Starscream mimicked with a mocking tilt of his head. "Soft-sparked Autobots would never beat their prisoners, oh no. They just deny them recharge and fuel and keep them drugged and docile. Isn't _that _the Autobot way?"

Prime cycled a sigh. "Starscream..."

"Prime."

"...Optimus."

Starscream snorted. "Are we bonding, Prime? If you want to be friends, deactivate the forcefield."

Prime – Optimus – looked away with a weary expression. "...Are you damaged?"

"What?"

Optimus turned back to him and Starscream saw his optics flick down and up, taking him in. His armour prickled.

His wings tense and low, he growled, "I don't need your pity or your help, Autobot. Just do your job." He looked away. "I don't have anything to say to the likes of you."

He listened to Optimus wait, waver, and eventually leave without another word.

The next time the guards brought Starscream his energon, he thought it tasted different.

"Soft-sparked Autobot," he muttered.

* * *

The next time Optimus visited him it was almost time for lights-out. This time he came alone.

It was a couple of cycles since their last chat, and Starscream had time to stew since then.

"Here for another of our little talks, Autobot?" Starscream said. He was lying on the berth in the corner with his thrusters up and leaning against the wall. His arms were folded behind his head, and he was as comfortable as his cell and his bonds would allow. "Don't tell me you can't find better company on this entire cruiser than little old Starscream?" He didn't need to look at the Autobot to see the uncomfortable tension in his frame, the disapproval and reproach in his blue optics.

"I'm just coming to check on you," Optimus said.

"Sentimentality?" Starscream scoffed. "For the sake of good times passed, right? All those wonderful memories from that mud-ball... A thousand stellar cycles to you. Far less than that for me."

"Where have you been?"

"Didn't I say before I wouldn't be interrogated by the likes of you?"

"Words to that effect, yes."

Starscream turned his head. Optimus had pulled a stool over to the forcefield and was sitting uneasily. Their optics met.

He wondered if he should thank him for the fuel.

"Maybe _you_ can tell _me _something," Starscream said. Optimus raised an optic ridge but said nothing. Starscream continued, "What happened?"

"What...?"

"You know. My memory files... are a little hazy." He looked at the ceiling again. "Megatron."

Optimus seemed to know what he was asking. There was a silence, then he heard the 'Bot draw his breath. "His plan failed. The clones, the giant Omegas, were going to destroy the city. Prowl and Jazz were able to use the Allspark to create a forcefield around the blast zone. Megatron was caught in it, but the explosion was contained. No one else was hurt."

Starscream took a few kliks to think about this.

"I'd heard he was in the Stockade."

He glanced to Optimus, who nodded once. "He is. He survived the blast somehow... "

"Hm!" Starscream shook his head. He couldn't think of any other mech but himself who would have been able to survive an explosion of the sort those Omega monsters threatened. The stubborn old fool simply refused to die.

"He kept fighting," Optimus said. "Until he... stopped."

Megatron, stop?

Optimus only shook his head. "The fight went out of him. I think... he realised he was lost. He was alone, overpowered... I was about to give the killing blow."

"Why didn't you?"

The answer hung silent and loud between them, but Optimus said it anyway. "I'm an Autobot."

* * *

The odd little visits kept happening. Starscream was surprised to find himself almost looking forward to them. They broke up the monotony and crushing boredom of his imprisonment, if nothing else. Certainly that was what he told himself.

More and more Optimus would come to him just before lights-out, and always without a guard.

Even with his heavy armour, the Autobot was so _small _compared to him. It was strange seeing him adopt a commanding pose, strange seeing the decorated crest on his shoulder that marked him out as Elite – as the best the Autobots had to offer.

It made Starscream's processor spin to think the Decepticons had ever been defeated by such puny malfunctions as these.

Their conversation ranged from the mundane to the serious, always wandering back at some point to the days on Earth and its moon. Starscream was starved for information and trying to fill in the lost time, the hole in his memory for all the time he had spent on the scrap-heap. He'd wanted to know how he got there, but Optimus couldn't tell him. He had left him on Earth.

"I wasn't involved in the clean up," he told Starscream one evening with a guilty look.

"Let me guess – you were on Cybertron receiving your grand honours and medals for heroism."

"That's not too far from the truth," Optimus admitted, defensive and prickly. "I'll be Magnus one day, if what they say is true. They gave me this ship. _Ariel_. It's the new Autobot flagship, a prototype-"

"Very impressive," Starscream said dryly. "What were you doing out in that backwater system? Naresus IV, was it? In the market for a pleasure-slave, Prime?" He smirked, wanting to see Optimus squirm.

He wasn't disappointed. Optimus cast his optics away, annoyed and embarrassed. "I told you," he said briskly. "We were following _your _distress beacon. Why were you broadcasting an Autobot-coded message, anyway?"

Starscream shrugged. He slowly sprawled back, draping himself across the berth with careless, lazy grace.

"Decepticons don't usually respond to distress beacons. Autobots like to be _helpful_." He smiled. He didn't know why he felt so talkative, but for some reason he found himself spilling all these things to this quiet Autobot with the gently concerned expression and unsettlingly calm optics. "I was still on the scrap-heap when I started broadcasting that. I'd forgotten all about it by the space-station. Did you know my old comrade tried to _sell_me?"

Optimus seemed to find the outrage in his voice amusing, but he tried to stifle the small spurt of laughter. As well he did, Starscream thought.

"The slave markets..." Optimus sobered and there was that slagging _concern _again. "The High Command does know about them. But out here they're outside of Cybertron's jurisdiction."

"Bet it hurt you to just fly on by, didn't it?" Starscream said lazily. Optimus rolled his shoulders. Starscream thought about how tense they would feel under his clawed hands. "You want to fix the world. A hero type. I get it."

"Oh really..." Optimus fixed him with an earnest, if disapproving look. "What would a Decepticon know about heroes?"

"I knew one, once," Starscream said. "A long, long time ago. An idealist just like you. His designation was Megatron."


	5. Crash and Burn

It was another seven decacycles before the ship was attacked.

Starscream snapped awake as the cruiser was rocked by cannon-fire. He fell from the berth into a cursing heap on the floor. By the time he got onto all fours the ship was hit again, and this time the antigrav gear must have been damaged. Starscream found himself rising from the floor, weightless. He cursed and wished his cell had a window. Alarms were blaring, and the hallway outside his little cell was lit only with flashing, red-alert red.

"Hey!" He clawed along the wall until he was hovering inches from the buzzing forcefield. "Let me out! What's going on?"

An Autobot ran by – not one of his guards, this was a smaller mech, a scout maybe, in green and yellow deco – and spared him a passing glance. His expression was harried. "Under attack," he said, and then he was gone.

"Under-? By who? You can't leave me in here!" Starscream punched the forcefield, but the current snapped and boomed and he was thrown back across the cell by the force of it, his whole body jolting and singing with pain and heat. He hit the wall and grunted. Once the initial shock wore off, he massaged his hand. He still couldn't feel anything in it. It was probably a blessing – it was the hand he had damaged on the first day, trying to pull free from his cuffs.

The ship creaked and pitched wildly as it was hit again. Starscream heard the periodic booming of the Autobots returning fire. There was a particularly loud crash and roar, and Starscream was thrown to the floor, hitting his face and chipping a tooth. He snarled, then bashed the floor with his numb hand and yelled. He could hear flames beneath the sirens, and the creaking of tearing metal. The hull had been breached, and the engines were screaming.

"Let me out! Prime!" No one answered. He wouldn't wait around for rescue. He started to claw at the wall by the forcefield – he was sure there was a control panel just outside the cell. There must be wiring running behind the wall. He gouged and tore at the metal desperately as the smell of smoke filled his olfactory sensors.

He heard combat nearby. The ship had been boarded, evidently. His first thought was Decepticons, until he remembered he was supposedly the last (free) mech of his kind. Outlaws, then, he guessed. Pirates or opportunistic space-bandits. He continued to claw the wall. He made cuts deep enough to see the circuitry and cabling beneath the surface. He didn't have time to study it and carefully rewire whatever section he needed to deactivate the forcefield – instead he simply destroyed everything he could reach.

He let out a cry of triumph when the forcefield flickered, hummed, and went silent. He gingerly reached out a claw-tip to test it, and met nothing but cold. He might still be shackled still, but he was free.

He used his thrusters on a gentle setting to propel himself out of the cell.

A dead Autobot floated motionless to his right. It wasn't the scout he'd seen earlier, but he had a similar, small build. Droplets of oil and energon formed a starry surround, and made a trail around a nearby corner.

"Hmm." The ship creaked and heaved. The red lights flashed and spun, and smoke drifted. Starscream would have to get free of the ship soon.

Thrusters on low and sensors reaching as far as he could – there seemed to be a lot of interference – he advanced, following the trail of energon.

He found the remains of what must have been the battle he'd heard while still confined. Three dead mechs, floating in a gory tangle. Their optics were blank and their wounds grievous.

Starscream grimaced and shoved them out of his way. They bounced off the wall slowly, broken limbs clanking.

Something caught his optic. His attention switched to the dark corridor ahead. Here the lights had failed or else been broken. A glittering cloud of broken glass drifted in the air, reflecting shadows. One of those shadows moved.

A single point of deep green glinted amid the velvet, red-tinted black. A shiver ran down Starscream's back.

The mech in the darkness moved forward. Starscream saw the glinting, gunmetal grey armour and slanting lines of an angular, gaunt frame. The face was shaded in planes of darkness, but Starscream recognised the solemn features and the cold, blank expression. Lower, the light reflected off the elongated, spiny curves of a claw – not the elegant hands Starscream remembered, but a weapon. Each digit was several feet long, tapered to a point for piercing and tearing. It made his own talons look blunt.

Starscream's wrists were still cuffed before him – he had a little bit of movement due to the length of the chain, but he was limited. The Autobots had confiscated the weapons Swindle sold him.

"You owe me a debt, Decepticon."

Starscream hissed. "I paid it. I let you live when I killed the rest of your miserable crew."

Driver slowly shook his head. "The life of an old junker like me? How much is that worth? It's worthless... I need a fair exchange..."

"What...? You're crazy-"

"Or perhaps," Driver said, his vocals even but gruff. "I should simply take back what I gave you."

"What-?" Starscream yelped and recoiled as Driver attacked. He used his thrusters to move in the zero-G and avoid the wide, deadly swipe of Driver's claw. His back hit the cluster of corpses. He snarled as he became entangled in their ruined limbs.

He bared his teeth and kicked. One foot hit Driver in the jaw and knocked him to the side, giving Starscream a moment to free himself. His cuffs got caught on a piece of torn metal. He tugged, trying to use raw strength to break free, but Driver was on him again. Angry, Starscream brought his legs up and flared his thrusters. Driver's claw hooked into one ankle, but the fire of the jet's thrusters hit him. Starscream was propelled backward, corpses and all, but Driver was latched onto him now. His other hand, the normal one, trailed uselessly, until he used it to help himself free his talons. Starscream tried to get enough purchase to turn and attack. As he did, the claw swung again, and four of its five points pierced Starscream's left wing. He screamed. The fingers had punctured through, and pink energon now coated both wing and claw. Too close to Starscream's, Driver's face was impassive. Starscream's back was to the wall, save the tangle of bodies behind and around him, stinking of death, their blank optics watching the dance.

Starscream met Driver's stare. Rage and fear mingled in the seeker's expression and his mind. How did this small time crook manage to get the drop on him? On _Starscream_?

"This time I'll have the matching set," Driver said. "Two wings, and a bird to go with them."

Starscream snarled and snapped his teeth, going for Driver's throat. Driver brought his free hand up and slammed Starscream back by the neck. Something sharp drove into Starscream's back and pierced his plating. Starscream whimpered. Without his shard or his weapons, he felt vulnerable. He was all alone down here, on a ruined, most likely abandoned ship. With this mech...

The claw moved, each tiny motion making his wing scream in pain. He kicked and twisted – it hurt him more, but he had to get free, he had to _hurt _the bastard. Driver pressed down. His hand around Starscream's throat was stronger than a servo that slender should be. Starscream felt cables start to buckle, and warm energon trickled down the outside of his throat, formed spheres, and floated away.

"I'm not... a prize...!" The pain was concentrated and acute. It flared anew when Driver wiggled and pulled the claw out, only to rake it slowly across the surface of the wing. The sound it made was a bitter shriek, and Starscream shook and howled. He tried to free his hands again, but they were still caught and awkwardly pinioned beside and behind him, the cuffs' chain still hooked on some interior part of one of the dead bots.

"Not a prize. Just a decoration. And _mine_. I found you..."

Driver leaned in close and pressed his cheek against Starscream's. Starscream stilled, his optics burning bright scarlet.

"Finders _keepers_," Driver whispered. His body pressed in between Starscream's thighs.

Starscream growled and bared his teeth, and when Driver kissed him hard enough to hurt he _bit _at the mech's thin lips and pointed, probing glossa. Driver hissed and wrenched his claw free of the wing – causing energon to spill generously – and lifted it, ready to swing for a retaliatory slash. Starscream wrapped his legs around Driver's hips and angled his thrusters at Driver's thighs before letting them flare, maximum power and heat. Driver screamed and tried to wrench himself free. In the struggle his claw swiped Starscream's face.

Starscream got his legs between himself and Driver again and gave a powerful, jet-aided kick that sent the two of them surging and crashing into opposite walls.

Starscream was triumphant for a moment – before a sick, screaming pain that had blinded his sensors until now registered, and he let out a ragged cry of agony. He looked to the left. The wing Driver had mangled... somehow Driver had got that claw hooked into it when Starscream had kicked, and had wrenched it when they burst apart. The claw was out now, and trailing energon in an arcing spray across the dark hallway, but the wing was a ruin. It had been pulled from the base unit on Starscream's back, the metal torn, and was now attached only by a few cables and the support struts on the very lower edge. Energon gushed from the raw wound, and Starscream gaped at the damage. He hadn't been conscious when he lost a wing before – it must have happened long after he was dead, because it hadn't hurt like _this_, nothing had ever hurt like _this._..!

He raised his hand to try and push the wing back into place, but he couldn't bring himself to touch the exposed wiring, the sheared metal.

Driver's plating was blackened, ashy white, or smouldering a hot, fiery orange where Starscream's thrusters had burned him. His claw was still sharp, and his optic remained fixed unwaveringly on the seeker. If he was in pain, he didn't show it.

"Almost got it, bird. I'll have the other one next."

He pushed off from the wall and raised his deadly claw.

Starscream, cowed by the severity of his injury, watched motionless as the mech attacked. It wasn't just the pain that brought him down... his wings were as much a core of his being as his spark had been, and their loss would affect him more. Without his wings he was _grounded_. What good was a seeker without his wings? A seeker's soul is in his wings.

Starscream kept his optics open and over-bright, so when the bright blur barrelled into Driver from the side and sent the two of them reeling, he saw. Red, blue, and silver, and the glint of a blade. Shivering, he turned his head to watch the tangle of mechs hit the floor and writhe in a battle to the death. Driver hit the ceiling, and, now they were apart, Starscream's optics could focus on the newcomer.

"..._Prime_?"

Were his logic circuits malfunctioning as a result of the pain? He must be hallucinating. Why the frag would Optimus slagging Prime come to _Starscream's _rescue?

The little mech seemed so small in comparison to Driver's long, spindly, deceptively powerful frame. Optimus had more bulk and power than he had back on Earth, however, including boosters on his back and... were those _wings_?

_Winged Autobots_, Starscream thought deliriously. _Now I know I'm hallucinating._

Driver pushed off from the ceiling. Starscream saw the faintest hint of expression on his face as he descended – his lip was curled and the tips of his fangs revealed.

Optimus was unfazed. As the larger mech came down, Optimus tightened his grip on his long-handled axe. Starscream saw his shoulders bunch, his optics focus. Optimus swung. The axe bit into Driver's helm at just the right moment. It connected silently, and slid into Driver's helm in one smooth swing. Energon sprayed, and Optimus kicked at Driver's chest to push him away. The axe had sheared off half of Driver's head – the top half of his face and the crown of his helm. His processor was broken, and Starscream knew his spark would be dying.

Optimus turned to Starscream. He was still trapped, cuffed and caught. His cheek bled from a gash that stretched from his left optic to the right corner of his mouth, his lip torn. The real damage was the wing, though, hideous and shocking in its mutilation.

Without a word, Optimus moved closer – he used the boosters on his back for propulsion – and brought the axe down. Starscream closed his optics and flinched, but when he opened them again he found he was free. Optimus had severed the chain that linked Starscream's wrist cuffs. Starscream pulled his hands free of the corpses.

Optimus looked at his wing, aghast. Starscream was ashamed of his weakness.

"I came to get you," Optimus said. He put his axe away on his back. "The ship's going down, half the crew are dead. Raiders..." He gestured to where Driver's lifeless body floated grotesquely.

Starscream swallowed his pain and forced himself into functioning. "You came to get me," he said flatly. "_You_... came to rescue _me_."

Optimus looked flustered. "You're in my charge. I couldn't just leave you..."

Starscream shook his head and cycled a long, shaky sigh. "...Autobots."

"I _am _an Autobot, and one you owe your life to. Now come on... can you move?"

"Of course I can."

"Then let's go. We have to get to the bridge." He let the way, and Starscream followed. Without his wings he felt ungainly and unbalanced, but in the vacuum of the breached ship he was able to lurch along after the Autobot with his thrusters alone, helping himself along by latching his claws into the walls here and there.

They passed many more dead mechs, and many gaping tears in the ship's hull, most roughly patched by flickering forcefields. Starscream boggled at the extent of damage the raiders had wreaked – this had to have been more than just Driver and whatever undesirables he could have hired since Starscream took the _Reaver_.

The thought of escaping crossed Starscream's mind several times. The cuffs were around his wrists but they didn't restrain him, and Optimus gave him his back. If he had his wings he could fly away, he could just _go_... If he had his wings. He sighed, fighting through the pain.

He threw in his lot with the slagging hero.

They didn't meet any living mechs, either raiders or Autobots. When they reached the bridge Optimus floated over to a central control panel and hit a few keys. A holoscreen popped up above the terminal, glyphs glowing, and several red flashing damage reports bleeping to tell the captain the extent of the ship's ruin.

Starscream lingered by the back wall. He gingerly touched the edge of his broken wing and hissed at the flare of delicate, sharp pain.

"We can crash land on this moon," Optimus said. He tapped a glyph and the large, cracked viz-screen flickered to life showing a sandy, mountainous rock in a distant orbit around a small, far-away organic planet.

"Crash land?" Starscream spat. "We should abandon ship."

"And go where? We disabled the raiders' ship but didn't destroy it. If we jettison escape pods the remaining pirates will pick us off like easy targets."

"_You're _an easy target," Starscream said, and Optimus gave him a confused look before returning his attention to the terminal.

Starscream stewed over and nursed his wounds as Optimus guided the creaking, straining ship down onto the moon's surface. Starscream had never been any good at this kind of manoeuvre anyway – he could fly _himself_ with surgical precision, but flying another ship had always been a challenge, hence why he had crashed the _Nemesis_.

It was a rough and bumpy landing. Starscream hissed and curled up, clutching his broken wing. Optimus's fingers flew over the terminal's keys as he fought to stabilise the ship's course and speed. It seemed to take forever, each bump and jolt convincing Starscream the cruiser would break apart any astrosecond. Red lights circled and flared, and alarms blared.

At long last the ship bounced and shuddered to a halt. The silence that followed was tense and long.

When the ship didn't fall to pieces after several kliks, Optimus and Starscream allowed themselves to relax a little.

Starscream uncurled, and Optimus turned to him. "I think... we're safe."

Starscream glanced down at the pool of energon expanding around him. "Speak for yourself."


	6. Lost

The raiders' cannon-fire had destroyed the med-bay.

Optimus offered Starscream a shoulder to lean on as they left the ship. Starscream batted him away with a snarl, but after a few shaky steps he relented. There was nothing wrong with his legs, but he was feeling weak and dizzy from his damage. He told himself there was nothing wrong with taking what was offered.

Optimus had sustained some minor injuries, but only scratches and dents that his self repair would fix in time.

The moon they found themselves on was sandy, rocky desert, with high, rolling dunes, tough grey trees, and distant mountains. Optimus led Starscream beneath the trees to shelter from the blowing sand and dust. He eased Starscream onto the ground, even helping to cradle the broken wing to stop it from hanging or breaking off all the way. Starscream bristled at his hands on it, but found the sensors along the wing's length were dulled or dead, and only those around the tear seemed to be still active. He tried to numb them somewhat. If he ever wanted to fly again, he would need Optimus' help and his good will. And he would need to put up with his hands.

Optimus grabbed a smell portable med-kit during their flight from the ship. He pulled it out of his subspace now, set it on the ground, and opened it up.

"You're not a medic," Starscream grunted. He against one of the stunted trees and looked up. The sky was pale grey. He didn't recall pushing through an atmosphere, though considering their rough landing he wasn't altogether surprised. He _was _surprised the big cruiser hadn't been incinerated when they tried to punch through said atmosphere.

The _Ariel _itself was a hulking white shape in the desert just beyond their little copse. It was smoking, some parts of it still aflame. The fires burned red, yellow, and green in the alien air. Debris was scattered across the dunes for miles.

He turned his attention back to Optimus when he felt the bot move his wing. The pain had receded to an ache, but when Optimus held the wing and lifted, Starscream yowled and lashed out. Optimus flinched away.

"I'm just trying to help," he said, reproachfully. Starscream grit his teeth. "I don't know where our medics are, if they even survived," Optimus explained. "They might not have survived..."

Starscream looked back toward the ship. Shouldn't the Prime be more concerned about his crew than his prisoner?

"If I don't do a field patch-job," Optimus continued, "you might get sand and other things in there..."

"Fine" Starscream snapped. He curled his claws into the sand beneath him to stop himself from tearing into Optimus. "Just make it quick. "

Optimus nodded. He worked surprisingly deftly, for a bot who could only have the most fleeting training in field repairs. Starscream hoped his self-repair systems were still somewhat functional considering his shard was gone. He would need fuel – without spark or shard, energon was the only power source he had left.

By the time Optimus was sealing up the torn plating with a small welding torch, there were figures picking themselves out of the wreckage of the ship. Starscream watched them with glazed optics. They hadn't noticed he and Optimus yet, and he was happy with that. He wasn't sure how good his odds of survival were with a band of wounded, angry Autobots. At least he was reasonably sure Optimus wouldn't use him for parts for his own repairs.

Finally Optimus was finished. Starscream was shivering, and a film of condensation made his scuffed up armour shine feverishly. He met Optimus's optics, and then looked at his wing. It was a sorry, ugly sight, and he would have a hard time doing any precision flying with an uneven surface like that. The sensors within and along the length were still broken or malfunctioning, and the tender area around the patched tear was painful if he allowed his sensors to transmit normally. But it was attached.

"It's not a perfect job," Optimus said. "When I can get you to a medic I'll have them look at it." He frowned, bit his lip, and pulled a cloth from his subspace. He started to wipe the smears of energon from the scratched plane of the wing. Starscream whimpered and then quickly bit his glossa to silence himself. The soft touches to the sensitised, tender wing was enough to send his overworked sensors spiralling to dangerous levels. "S-sorry! Does that hurt?" Optimus pulled away.

Starscream grit his teeth. "Don't know." In truth he didn't know if it was pain or sweet pleasure, but whatever it was it made him feel sick – it was just too _much_.

To Starscream's relief, Optimus moved away and got to his feet. He turned and saw the other survivors.

"Ah...!" He waved before Starscream could hiss at him to stop. "Stay here..." The Prime looked worried for a fleeting moment – worried his prisoner would make a break for it, presumably. Starscream could have laughed. He was in no fit state to fly. "I have to go find the survivors. I'm their captain."

Starscream waved him off irritably. "So you remembered."

* * *

The Autobots spent the next several joors salvaging supplies from the crash-site and setting up a camp. Starscream considered helping them, then snorted and dozed instead. He kept his proximity sensors active so he would wake if any bot came too close, but he trusted the fool Prime to stop his mechs from trying to damage his precious prisoner. He was thirsty, hungry, and his wounds throbbed, but he was happy to rest a little.

He awoke to his sensors pinging warnings up on his HUD. He opened his optics. Optimus Prime stood with a small cube of energon in his hand.

"I thought you might need refuelling," he said.

Starscream licked his parched lips and forced his vocaliser to work despite his dry throat. "How thoughtful."

Optimus seemed to miss the sarcasm. He sank to one knee by Starscream's side, the opposite side to his newly-repaired wing.

"How are you doing?" Optimus asked. He handed Starscream the cube, ready opened. Starscream knocked back half of it at once, and immediately felt nauseous. It was mid-grade, there was nothing wrong with it, but he guessed his system was operating in a fragile state at the moment. He cycled a few intakes until his tank settled.

"Fantastic," he said. Optimus moved to take the cube back, but Starscream took another sip and didn't offer any to him. "Never been better."

"...About a hundred survived," Optimus said sadly. "The raiders came out of nowhere."

Starscream gave him a sidelong look. He was hardly about to tell him he'd known one of them. For all he knew Driver had tracked him and attacked the cruiser on purpose, though it was hard to imagine a small-time crook like Driver rustling up a battleship under such circumstances. More likely the mech had friends in high places. Or had once.

"You'll be in trouble," Starscream said. "The Elite Guard." His vocals were crisp as he uttered the organisation's name, and he gestured with the cube, pointing to the crest on Optimus's shoulder. "You ruined their precious ship."

"Maybe." Optimus sat and passed a hand over his face. He looked so tired. "The ship sent a distress call to Fortress Maximus as soon as we were boarded. Until the Guard comes to pick us up we'll just have to conserve what supplies we have, and work on trying to get the _Ariel _back in the sky."

Starscream looked up. The sky was darkening. "You've made camp?"

Optimus nodded.

"Where am I meant to recharge? Have you built me a new cell?"

"Do I need to?"

"I'm Starscream. Megatron's right hand mech, feared throughout the seven galaxies. You're asking _me_?"

"Can you walk?"

"Of course."

"...Want to lean on my shoulder again?"

Starscream did, but he said, "And let all your crew see the fearsome Decepticon reduced to that? I don't think so."

Optimus offered no come-back, for which Starscream was grateful. He pushed himself to his feet, his frame creaking. He wished he had let Optimus clean him up a bit more. There was energon all over him, drying – some his own, some Driver's. The cut on his face were was ugly and sore.

He walked under his own power, Optimus by his side, to the Autobot encampment.

It was a ragtag group of bots who had survived the crash, and many of them sported their own damage. The settlement they'd erected looked like a nomad village, and was made up of a combination of salvaged debris coupled with reflective silvery marquees he could only assume were carried on board for just this sort of occasion.

His reception was mixed, but they seemed reassured by Optimus's close presence. Grudgingly, he let them put a fresh set of shackles on him.

After much hemming and hawing, they elected to put him in a makeshift cell on the outer edge of the camp. It was one of the marquees, little more than a tent really, though the material it was made from was designed to resist adverse meteorological conditions. Due to his damage, they didn't tie him up, but they did post guards at the tent's entrance

Optimus brought him a medic. A femme going by the designation of Ether, she was a sleek little bike-alt with deceptively firm hands and a decisive, almost bullying berthside manner. Starscream didn't warm to her, but Optimus stayed and waited with him while she inspected the rough patch-job and made a few repairs of her own. When she was finished she bandaged his wing and put a nanite dressing on his cheek. Optimus barely spoke, but Starscream was still happy for his presence. Something about his quiet, watchful presence made him sure the hard-optic'd medic wouldn't try anything while he was watching. When she was done, they both left him alone with barely another word.

There was no bunk or berth, not even a sleeping pad or cushion to rest his aching head on. The ground was covered with some kind of grey, mossy growth. Starscream supposed it was better than sand.

Night descended upon the camp. Gradually, lights went out, and voices hushed as the Autobots sank into recharge. Starscream's sensors told him his pair of guards remained vigilant.

Sighing, he tried to lie down on his back. The pain to his wing proved too much, however, and he had to sit up and shift onto his front instead. He eventually found a position that was neither too awkward nor too painful, and drifted into a light and fitful recharge.

He wasn't sure how long he was asleep, but when he woke the camp was dark and silent.

He sat up.

He heard some words spoken in low voices outside his tent, then movement.

Wings low and stinging, Starscream waited and watched the door. The curtain door shifted, was pushed aside. Optimus entered.

Starscream let out the intake he had been holding. He had been half expecting the rest of the camp to descend on him in a mob as some kind of skewed vengeance for the losses they had suffered.

Optimus held a finger up to his lips to indicate quiet. He walked across the tent, the moss making his steps soft, almost silent.

"I dismissed the guards," Optimus said quietly.

"Won't that seem suspicious?"

"I'm the captain, you're my prisoner. They'll just think I want to interrogate you or something."

"...What _do _you want?"

"I..." Optimus looked uncomfortable. He sat down cross-legged near Starscream. "I'm not sure. Maybe I wanted to see that you hadn't been mistreated."

Starscream tutted. "It's a good thing all Autobots aren't as soft-sparked as you, you'd never have won the war."

"How are your wounds?" Optimus lifted a hand as though to touch the cut on Starscream's face, but he stopped himself. He blinked, embarrassed, and Starscream watched him.

"Healing," Starscream said. "I've looked better." He was a mess, he knew it.

"I could..." Optimus said haltingly. "I could clean you up."

Starscream met his optics and tried to gauge if he was baiting him. He detected not a trace of sarcasm, not a hit of _double entendre_.

He did want to get Driver's tainted energon off him.

"...Just watch the wings."

Optimus nodded. "Right. ...What do you mean?"

"I mean don't touch them unless you really have to," Starscream said stiffly.

"Okay..." Optimus drew a fresh cloth from his subspace, and a bottle of gentle solvent. He soaked the cloth in the solvent and shuffled nearer. Starscream saw him swallow and lower his optics. Starscream continued to watch as Optimus gingerly dabbed at the energon staining the red glass of Starscream's cockpit.

The silence was heavy as Optimus worked. He cleaned Starscream's cockpit first, then his chest plates, the vents on his chest, then down to his waist. Then, with a look to seek permission, he took one of Starscream's arms and gently worked his way down until he cleaned each claw individually. Starscream watched and felt like he had his spark in his throat, if he'd had a spark at all.

Optimus did the other arm next, then moved carefully behind the seeker. He rubbed the cloth in soothing circles over Starscream's shoulders, the back of his neck, and slowly down the line of his spinal strut. Starscream sighed softly. His wings moved slowly, fanning just slightly back and forth. He leaned into the Prime's careful touches. His sensornet thrilled sweetly when Optimus followed swipes of the cool cloth with strokes of his warm fingertips.

"...What are you doing?" Starscream whispered.

"I don't know," Optimus answered, his vocals just as hushed. He reached Starscream's waist again, and his hands rested on the gentle swell of the seeker's hips.

Starscream kept his optics closed. "...You can do my wings too," he said.

"...Really?"

Starscream nodded. "Be careful."

"I will."

Optimus chose the undamaged wing first. His touch was so light Starscream barely felt more than a breath of sensation along the lower edge. It was enough to make his sensornet light up, and he drew a soft, quick breath. Optimus stopped.

"Is that okay?" he said.

Starscream wondered if the Autobot had any idea how sensitive a seeker's wings were. Wondered if Optimus had any idea what it meant to be allowed to _touch_ his wings, to be _asked _to... But he couldn't really expect an Autobot to understand. Optimus's own wings were just an upgrade. They weren't a part of his very self.

He refreshed his vocals, but his voice still sounded cracked and hoarse. "Yes..."

Optimus started again. He gently dabbed splatters of oil, and wiped more firmly to remove the dried on energon stains. Starscream shivered when he passed over the brand. Even after all these millennia it was still sensitive. Optimus's strokes grew firmer and more confident, and again he followed each swipe with the fingertips of his free hand. Starscream gasped the first time he did that – the cleansing cloth was one thing, but the warm contact of Prime's fingers was another level of intimacy.

He leaned back into the touches and his wings angled slightly. He felt Optimus falter. When the Prime spoke he was close enough for Starscream to feel his breath against his audio.

"I'm not hurting you? You seem.."

Starscream swallowed, licked his dry lips, and said, "My wings are sensitive..." As if on cue, they twitched.

Optimus ran the tip of one finger along the wing's top edge and Starscream moaned softly. "I... never noticed how expressive they are, either," the Prime said.

"Autobots don't notice anything," Starscream replied. He met Optimus's optics. He was so close.

"Sensitive..." Optimus put the cloth down, apparently removing all pretence. He was pretty much finished anyway – Ether had cleaned up the damaged wing before she had dressed it. He ghosted his fingertips over the smooth plane of the undamaged wing, and Starscream bit his lip to silence a heavy moan. He felt Optimus's energy field warm up, along with his hands. His palms moved in slow, smooth strokes from the base of the wing to the tip. Starscream covered his mouth to muffle a yelp when Optimus pinched his wing-tip.

He turned to look at Optimus again and found him smiling a disconcertingly un-angelic smile. Starscream slowly smiled back, feeling off-balance. He leaned back against Optimus's chassis, and the smaller mech wrapped his arms around his waist.

Starscream closed his optics and rested there for a few kliks, listening to the rhythmic sound of both their intakes. Optimus rested his helm on Starscream's shoulder. They seemed to be at an impasse.

Just when he thought Optimus would do nothing more, he brought one hand to the back of Starscream's neck. Starscream said nothing and let the Prime do as he wished. Optimus stroked curiously, then kneaded, and Starscream sighed as Optimus's fingers worked their way down his spinal strut. For a fleeting moment a fingertip stroked the edge of his damaged wing – an unhurt part, but one not deadened by damage – and Starscream did moan.

He shifted so he was sitting with his legs apart and his hands on the ground between them, leaning forward slightly, back subtly arched.

"Oh..." Optimus's vocals were barely above a whisper. Starscream's wings were perked up high now, warm to the touch. Starscream kept his optics closed and tried not to think too much. The touches were nice, this contact. To be taken care of wasn't a weakness, it was a luxury. Optimus was an Autobot, but he was the only one around.

Optimus stroked and massaged the seeker's back and shoulders. Now and then he would stroke a wing, always an undamaged area, always careful and sweet. It was something novel to Starscream – this style, alien in its unfamiliarity. But there was no bot here to see except Optimus. No one needed to know that he could let himself go like this, no one needed to know that he enjoyed this, that he wanted it...

He heard Optimus shift, and then he was pressed against him again. He was kneeling up, and he nuzzled the side of Starscream's helm. His hands crept around Starscream's frame to stroke his cockpit and one of his chest vents.

"Ah..." Starscream turned his head and leaned into the Autobot's touch. Their lips brushed against each other, so close. "Mm..." Starscream parted his lips and pushed against the Prime's compact, solid frame. Optimus's optics were closed now too, and his hands roamed slowly, tentatively up and down Starscream's cockpit, chest, and waist. Starscream hissed softly, and his core temperature rose.

When he couldn't take any more sweet teasing, he cupped Optimus's cheek and pulled him into a kiss. Optimus stilled, tensed, and Starscream half thought he would bolt. Unwilling to accept rejection, the seeker slipped his glossa between Optimus's lips and stroked and licked. Optimus softened and then, at last, kissed him back.

It was sweet, soft, searing hot. Starscream's frame sung with anticipation. When the kiss finally broke they were both breathless, and both their cheeks bore the pinkish tint of energon just below the surface. Optimus's expression was searching. Starscream was languid. He knelt, then turned around. Kneeling before Optimus he noticed their difference in height, and it made him smile.

Starscream pulled Optimus closer, his hand behind the Prime's helm. He came to him eagerly after a brief hesitation, and his kiss was more confident this time. Starscream sighed smugly and let the smaller 'bot take the lead. He wanted to be spoiled, and was quite happy to allow Optimus to do that for him. With all Starscream had been through, both before and after waking up in that dreadful graveyard, it was practically medicinal.

Optimus's hands found his cockpit and his wing again, and Starscream moaned. He heard Optimus's engines rev in response. His hands became firmer, his touches bolder. Starscream played with Optimus's helm finials and purred when it seemed to make the young mech shiver.

A moment later, Optimus pulled back. They gasped a few rough breaths, and Optimus said, "I can't."

"What...?" Starscream had his arms around Optimus's shoulders but the smaller mech was trying to move away, gently pulling Starscream off him. He was standing up, stepping back, shaking his head. Starscream stared at him, his processor whirling. A mixture of anger, disappointment, confusion, and embarrassment lent a tremor to his vocals and a pale brightness to his red optics. "Prime...!"

"I can't," Optimus said again. He glanced to the door, as though he expected the guards to burst in at any moment. Unlikely, Starscream thought. They were probably in recharge by now.

On his knees, Starscream sank down, and his wings drooped. He swallowed. He ought to kill the fragging mech for this humiliation, but all he wanted was for the dumb malfunction to come back and kiss him again. Fraggit, he _needed _this...

"I..." Optimus looked flustered, though Starscream thought he noticed the downward slant of Starscream's wings. "I'd be taking advantage. You're my prisoner, and... Oh slag." He turned away and passed a hand over his optics.

Starscream watched him in sullen silence until Optimus turned back. His troubled blue optics swept over Starscream's slumped shoulders, his accusing, betrayed look, and his tense, drooping wings.

"You're hard to resist, did you know that?" Optimus said softly, sadly.

Starscream pressed his lips together and dug his claws into the ground between his thighs. "...So don't."

"It's not that simple!" Starscream knew Optimus would have yelled if he wasn't still trying to keep his voice down. It wouldn't do either of them any good to wake the camp and attract attention. "I'm a Prime, and you're-"

"A Decepticon."

"You're _Starscream_. Not just any Decepticon."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Optimus turned away again. His shoulders were tense beneath the boosters and bulky casing that Starscream now knew held his wings.

"Fine," Starscream said sourly. Optimus half turned and looked at him again. Starscream wouldn't meet his optics.

There was a silence, and then the soft pad of Optimus's footsteps. Starscream looked up. Optimus had crossed the distance between them. Instead of leaving, he'd come back...

He knelt and touched Starscream's bandaged cheek. "This damage is my fault. You were my-"

"-Prisoner," Starscream finished for him, his vocals soft. "I still am. Your-..."

"Mine." Optimus kissed him again. This time his hesitancy was gone, and Starscream sighed in pleasure and relaxed into a deep, strong kiss. Optimus started to push him back, and it wasn't until Starscream laid his back on the soft mossy ground, his thighs on either side of Optimus's hips, that he realised his damaged wing wasn't going to allow him this luxury. He winced and hissed as the sore part touched the ground, and Optimus stopped the kiss and looked down at him. His optics had gone a dark turquoise, and his expression was darkly tender.

"My wing," Starscream explained, pointing with a nod of his helm.

Optimus nodded. "Turn over."

Starscream shifted onto all fours. His wing-tips trembled and he glanced over his shoulder to watch his partner. Optimus leaned over Starscream's larger, sleeker frame. His pelvic plating bumped against Starscream's aft, and he stroked the seeker's shoulders and back.

"Mm... you're getting better," Starscream said. He swayed his hips slowly.

Optimus placed a kiss on the base unit between Starscream's wings. His hands slid down Starscream's sides and around to his abdomen, then down again to his hips. His grip tightened and he stilled the seeker's swaying. He pushed his hips against Starscream's aft, and Starscream heard a low, stifled moan. His wings fluttered, and he pushed his hips back.

"Are you sure?" Optimus whispered.

"Always." Starscream slid his knees apart and lowered his shoulders. He rested his undamaged cheek against the soft mossy floor, and kept his aft up, his back elegantly arched. Optimus groaned, and Starscream smiled to know he was watching him.

The pleasant warmth of Optimus's frame withdrew, but the smaller mech didn't go anywhere. He only knelt up and ran his hands in small circles over the small of Starscream's back, then gradually down to his aft. Starscream moaned to encourage him and pushed his aft a fraction higher. Optimus's hands were warm and sure as they felt him up.

Starscream licked his lips. When Optimus's hands had warmed him up so much he couldn't hold out any longer, he slid his panel open.

He heard Optimus gasp, felt him still. The coolness of the air brushed across Starscream's exposed valve and made it tingle.

Just when he was starting to think Optimus had bottled out again, he felt the softest, lightest touch to his valve rim. His intakes caught, and he curled his claws into the ground. Optimus's fingers were dry and warm, and he stroked the very outer folds slowly and carefully.

Starscream wiggled his hips. "I won't break," he said.

"I know, I just..." Optimus leaned closer, one arm across the small of Starscream's back. Starscream felt the heat of his breath against his aft and valve. His valve tightened, and he knew it would be glistening with lubricant by now. He could certainly feel the slickness and throbbing tingle of arousal. "Just... _frag_." Optimus stroked his index finger up and down the length of Starscream's opening, from the little waste port in his aft all the way down to the frontal node just below his spike.

Starscream hissed in pleasure. Optimus slowly rubbed his knuckle against the slit , gradually nudging in between the soft folds. Starscream slid his knees a fraction wider and arched his back all the more.

"You're beautiful," Optimus breathed.

"Oh, spare me," Starscream sighed.

"It's true." Optimus ducked his head, and Starscream shivered when he felt the closeness and the heat of his intakes. "I don't know how I never realised before."

"Because you were fighting for your life," Starscream said. "Mm... if it's any consolation, Autobot, I barely paid you any notice either."

"Thanks, I feel much better."

"You're welcome... ohhh, come _on_-!"

"Shh. I'm getting there, be patient," Optimus soothed. His vocals were soft and measured, and he calmed the seeker further by stroking his hip and aft with the flat of his free hand. The other hand was still playing with Starscream's valve. "You're wet..." Optimus's tone was almost wondering. It fed Starscream's ego. "Can I...?"

"Yes. Whatever you were going to say, mm, yes." Optimus took a breath, and then Starscream felt the warm softness of his lips, the slick slide of his glossa, begin to caress his sensitive valve. Starscream mewled and his valve flexed. "Yessss..."

Optimus took the encouragement and started to explore Starscream's valve properly. He seemed enthusiastic if mildly clumsy, but Starscream only cared about how good it felt. He rocked his hips slowly and licked his lips. There was a look of blissful contentment on his face. Optimus suckled on the outer lips of Starscream's valve, then daringly nipped. Starscream gave a brief, gasping yelp and his cheeks coloured. Then came the smooth glide of Prime's glossa, licking in long strokes from front to back. It felt like silk, like silver and high-grade. He pushed back, and Optimus held Starscream's aft to keep him in place.

Optimus found the little node at the front of Starscream's valve, a little concentrated sensor cluster, and lapped at it. Starscream flexed his shoulders and felt his whole body light up. Then Optimus started to _suck _on the node and it was all Starscream could do to grind against his face, valve wet, node throbbing, charge building-...

Optimus pulled back. His lips made a wet _pop _as he pulled them from Starscream's sensor node.

Starscream growled and writhed and gouged lines in the moss beneath him. Just as he was about to push himself up and tackle that stupid Autobot to the ground, Optimus's hands were on his waist again. Starscream twisted to watch him with eager, savage eyes. Optimus bumped his hips against Starscream's aft, smearing his armour with Starscream's lubricant.

"C'mon Autobot," Starscream urged. He pushed himself up on his hands and rocked. Optimus gripped his waist and moved with him. Starscream unsheathed his spike. "Don't make me beg, because I won't."

Optimus's engine revved at that, and Starscream felt the vibrations through his back and out across his wings. He moved his hips back a little and released his own spike. It pressurised smoothly and the shaft pressed and rubbed against Starscream's aft. Starscream wiggled his hips impatiently.

Optimus lined the head of his spike up with Starscream's valve, and, after sliding and rubbing for a few moments, he started to push inside.

Starscream drew a smooth intake and held it. Optimus was well-equipped for a small mech, and Starscream's narrow hips and tight valve meant that despite their size difference there was still a pleasant stretch and feeling of warmth and fullness. Optimus held Starscream's middle as he eased inside all the way. Once fully sheathed inside the seeker's heat, Optimus leaned over Starscream's back and cycled his intakes deeply. Starscream felt the pulse of Optimus's spark in his valve.

Optimus's hands slid up from Starscream's waist to his chest, and the Autobot stroked and rubbed at the vents and the smooth swell of the seeker's cockpit as he began to rock his hips. He started out slow, and Starscream moved to meet him. It was slow and sweet, pure pleasure. Warm and soft and slow-building, Starscream relaxed and let himself enjoy the easy pleasure the Autobot was giving him. Now and again he circled his hips or flexed his valve, and all the time he rocked and moved with the Autobot's smooth rhythm.

Optimus knelt beneath him to allow Starscream to grind down, Optimus's spike going deeper. Starscream put his hands on the floor and used them to push himself back, down, grinding and rocking on the Autobot's thick spike. Optimus's hands roamed all over him, though seemed to spend the most time caressing his shapely hips, his curved cockpit, and the edges and ailerons of his wings. His touches were always careful, even when confident and sure – almost reverent, and never painful, always mindful of Starscream's injuries even in his passion. Their rhythm became faster, stronger, the Autobot's thrusts harder. Starscream moaned, and Optimus reached up to cover his mouth with a hand.

"Shh..." Optimus kissed a wing. "Don't want the guards to come...?"

Starscream shook his head, and Optimus took the hand away.

Starscream didn't know how long they rocked together. Optimus groped and kneaded his thighs, then pulled them wider apart and took hold of his spike. Starscream whimpered and bit his lip to keep himself silent. When this failed, he covered his mouth. Optimus pumped his spike with a strong hand.

Starscream bit back a yelp when Optimus pushed him forward again. He braced himself on his elbows and turned his head to try and see the Autobot. Optimus grabbed Starscream's thigh and lifted it, hooking it over his forearm and spreading Starscream wider. He grunted and ground up in between the seeker's spread thighs, deep into the slippery, throbbing valve. Starscream heard and felt Optimus's engines revving, and his own whined in response. His body arched and writhed, and he bucked wildly as an overload shook his system. Optimus growled and held onto Starscream. Starscream's valve felt hot and liquid, and as Optimus spilled his transfluid inside him his frame shuddered sweetly, and he yowled in inescapable pleasure.

In the silence after their overloads, Optimus slid his spike from Starscream's body and laid the seeker down on the soft mossy floor. His hands were careful, and Starscream wondered dazedly that the Autobot was still there. He'd half expected him to leave as soon as his hunger was fulfilled.

Starscream lay on his front and made a pillow of his arm. His wings fanned slowly, and his optics remained half closed as his intakes evened out. Optimus lay beside him. He propped his head on his hand and watched the seeker with bright turquoise optics. Starscream watched him back.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. The silence was comfortable and relaxed.

When Starscream's core temperature was back to a reasonable level, and his intakes more or less normal, he said, "...Regrets?"

Optimus shook his head. "You?"

"Never."


	7. The Pick Up

They were stranded in the desert for twenty days. Starscream saw Optimus regularly. The Autobot continued his secret nocturnal visits, when they would interface, and afterwards lie together, talk, and doze. Sometimes Optimus would caress a wing or a hip with soft, lazy fingertips. Starscream found the Autobot's company soothing and companionable, which alone was confusing enough. Starscream didn't seek out that kind of relationship, or that kind of _mech_.

At first Optimus had been heavy with the weight of his guilt. It had made him weary and gloomy. In his mind he had done something very wrong – not only would his superiors disapprove if they were to know of it, but his own ethical code had been breached. He couldn't even blame Starscream for it. The Autobot had made the first move.

Starscream had watched him wrestle with his own weakness and shame, his own self-reproach, with a smile. He wasn't going to take the blame for Optimus's failure to live by the very rules by which he defined himself – his Autobot code of honour. Autobots didn't take advantage of their prisoners.

Starscream noted that all of Optimus's moral squirming didn't stop him from kissing him when he asked for it, or 'facing almost every night. In that respect, Starscream was satisfied. It made his captivity bearable to have a warm body hold him and fuck him in the lonely night-cycle. He needled Optimus, luxuriated in his company, and waited for his wing to heal. His self-repair operated slowly, and he guzzled all the energon they would bring him in an attempt to speed his systems.

As the days wore on, and Starscream's damage slowly faded, the seeker was required to emerge from his tent and help the Autobots with the repairs to their damaged ship. Every pair of hands was needed, Optimus said, and Starscream grudgingly capitulated.

They left Starscream's shackles on his wrists, though linked them with a longer chain, so he was fit for manual labour. His wing wasn't healed enough for him to really fly, yet, and his weapons were under guard somewhere in the ship.

Under Optimus's direction, he helped to effect some of the repairs to some higher and harder to reach areas of the ship, due in part to his thrusters' capabilities and in part to his lack of fear of heights. The poor flightless Autobots seemed skittish once you took them far enough off the ground.

They had begun to carry out the dead while Starscream was still confined to his cell. Once he was free, he was able to see the sandy field where they had laid them. If he stood atop the ship's dorsal fin-like protrusion, balancing on his toes and thrusters, he could see over the stunted forest to the open space they'd chosen to assemble their fallen comrades.

One afternoon, he sneaked off to get a closer look. He didn't tell anyone he was going. He went on foot, so as not to attract attention. While the Autobots were busy, he slipped out of his guards' sight and into the shadows of the trees, and made his way through the forest.

The dead were laid out side by side with painstaking neatness. He imagined the spark-breaking attention that must have been paid them. He sneered at such a frivolous display of emotion. The Autobots' ship was crippled – it would be more practical to cannibalise the parts in order to help to fix it. Otherwise, he thought cynically, they might never get off this accursed rock.

He picked his way between them on light, careful toes. He would prefer to leave no evidence of his little visit. The clearing was silent save the gentle whispering of the sand moving in the wind, and the light jingling of Starscream's chains.

His sensors brushed the bodies. Grey or broken optics stared as he passed quietly by.

In the far corner of the clearing the Autobots had put the dead frames of the raiders. These were piled with less care, and Starscream wagered that if anybot was going to get taken apart for scrap – aside from himself, of course – it would be these unfortunates.

He didn't find the body he was looking for. Driver's frame wasn't laid out with the others.

He returned to find the camp in chaos. Optimus swept in before the mob could descend, and was able to hold them back with a combination of placating words, an earnest tone, and a strategically held axe.

Apparently, they thought Starscream had tried to escape.

* * *

"I'll try not to let anyone notice I'm gone next time," Starscream said wryly when they were alone again that night.

"How about you _try _not to go wandering off at all?" Optimus said. He was pacing the cell and gesticulating, but Starscream only arched a brow at his obvious aggravation.

"If anything this only reflects badly on you," he said with a yawn. "A dangerous Decepticon prisoner like me? Should be guarded around the clock. You're really very lax."

Optimus pressed his thumb and forefinger to the base of his nasal ridge.

Starscream lay on his back and stretched out, spread-eagle on the ground. His wing was healed enough for him to do this, even though Ether had insisted he keep the dressings on.

He glanced over. Disapproval was written plainly on Optimus's faceplates. Starscream could only laugh and beckon him closer. Optimus came and sat cross-legged on the ground beside him. Starscream sat up and mirrored his position. He raised his right hand and said, "I promise not to go wandering off, Autobot. Decepticon's honour."

Optimus frowned. "There's no such thing."

"There is so!" Optimus caught the wrist of Starscream's raised hand and pulled him closer. He nipped Starscream's jaw, and then his arm looped around Starscream's waist and the seeker was on his back again. He winced as his wing bumped the floor, and Optimus murmured an apology.

He pinched Optimus's shoulder. "Not a lot, sure, but there is honour-"

"-among thieves. I think that's from an Earth saying." Optimus dipped his head and kissed the hollow of Starsream's throat. Starscream tilted his head back obligingly.

"Earth...? That was that awful primitive planet, wasn't it? Where you tried to kill me."

"_You_ tried to kill _me_," Optimus said, his lips brushing against Starscream's neck cables, before wrapping them around one and suckling hard.

"Ooh." Starscream arched and twined his limbs around his smaller partner. "Of course I did. You're worthless Autobot – ohh – filth."

"Mmhmm." Optimus's hands slid under Starscream's aft and kneaded and lifted. Starscream opened his plating, and Optimus did the same. Their lips tangled in a sweet kiss, Starscream lifting his hips and curling his body, spreading his thighs wide and wrapping his legs around the Autobot's waist. Optimus slid inside him in a smooth slide, and Starscream gave a breathy, purring sigh.

Optimus rode him until Starscream came, arching and mewling, claws holding onto Optimus's strong shoulders. Optimus propped himself up with his hands on the ground, and rutted deep and hard.

"Ooh... mm, wait, stop," Starscream said.

"Wh-... what?" Optimus looked down at him in flushed incomprehension. Starscream writhed luxuriantly; his valve was sweetly warm and lavishly wet, and his body thrummed with the heat of satiation. "Did I do something wrong?" Optimus whispered, and the worry in his vocals made Starscream pinch his cheek to reassure him.

"No... mmm, was nice." Starscream met Optimus's bright optics with his own sultry crimson ones and gave him a crooked smile. "Wanna come in my mouth?"

Optimus groaned and shuddered. "_Yes_..."

"Mm, get out of me then," Starscream gently swatted and pushed at Optimus's hips after uncurling his legs. Optimus slipped out slowly, his frame trembling with unsatisfied need.

"How should I-?"

"How do you want?"

"I... On your knees."

Starscream grinned. "Ooh. Yes sir," he joked, though he knelt all the same. His thighs were a little apart, and lubricant seeped thickly from his open valve onto his thighs and the ground. He rested his hands loosely on his thighs, the chain linking them glinted and chinked softly.

Optimus stood shakily. Starscream watched him, watched the stiff, wetly glistening spike bob, eager and straining. When Optimus stepped near Starscream leaned forward and swiped his glossa over the wet tip.

Optimus gasped. His hand rested on Starscream's helm, and Starscream's wing-tips fluttered, the wings hiking themselves higher up his back – perking up with pride and excitement. He brought his hands to Optimus's hips and guided him closer, and then began to wetly suckle the rounded head of Optimus's spike.

Optimus moaned and curled over Starscream, both hands on the seeker's helm – resting and kneading. Starscream licked, and then started taking more of Optimus's length between his lips. Optimus was smaller than some of Starscream's lovers, so it was easy to take him to the hilt and keep sucking. Optimus bucked his hips, and Starscream growled. He held onto the Autobot and stilled him, guided him, for now.

He drew his head back slowly, then just as slowly took the spike back into his throat. His glossa swiped and swirled against the hot metal, tasting the transfluid that slowly leaked from the slit in the tip. He lowered his hands, linked as they were by the chain, and sneaked one between his own thighs. He gave his spike a few strong tugs before moving lower and rubbing the wet rim of his valve. He moaned softly and moved his head faster, suckled harder. His fingers found the sensor node at the front of his valve. His other hand wrapped around his spike and pumped.

Optimus must have seen him, because suddenly he was gasping and moaning, and his hands were firmer on Starscream's helm.

"Nnhh... can I...?"

"Mmm!" Starscream stilled and tilted his head and kept his throat relaxed. He gave no resistance when Optimus held his helm properly and started to thrust. He moaned and worked his spike and valve harder. Optimus kept one hand on the top of Starscream's helm, while the other held the seeker's jaw, and he guided his helm as he fucked his mouth. He started slow but deep, but as the heat grew, he seemed to allow himself to go harder until he was fucking Starscream's throat with a startling pace and strength. The seeker's mouth and throat made obscene, wet sounds as he sucked and struggled to swallow, his intakes coming in gulps and snatched gasps. Oral lubricant ran down his chin, and thickly coated Optimus's pulsing spike. When Optimus came he held Starscream against him and ground his spike in as deep as he could. He gave a few shallow, jabbing thrusts that made Starscream growl, and Starscream opened his throat and drank down all the fresh, hot transfluid the spilt from his spike.

Optimus ground slowly and luxuriantly for some kliks before releasing Starscream's helm. Starscream sank down and swallowed, then licked his lips. He met Optimus's optics. Optimus's face was flushed, his optics over-bright. He looked dishevelled, stunned, and startlingly sexy.

Starscream squeezed his own spike and whined.

Optimus nodded and knelt in front of him. He kissed him messily, deeply, and wrapped one arm around Starscream's neck to hold him close. His other hand joined Starscream's around the seeker's spike. Together they gave a few firm, tight strokes and Starscream overloaded with a sweet sigh against Optimus's lips.

"Mmmm..." Starscream purred as his climax rolled away to leave him in a state of buzzing, languid euphoria. He leaned against Optimus's frame and dotted kisses all over his helm, cheek, and shoulder, while his hands stroked and kneaded the strong lines and hard plating. Optimus's engines thrummed in response, and they sat for some time, petting and kissing, enjoying the warmth of each others' frames.

After some time, Optimus refreshed his vocals. He nuzzled Starscream's shoulder, then lifted his head. "I meant to say earlier," he said. "I have something to tell you."

His tone sounded disconcertingly grave, so Starscream pulled back to look at his face. "What?"

Optimus licked his lips. He kept his optics on Starscream's cockpit, not his face. "We got a response to our distress beacon today. From Fortress Maximus."

Starscream stared at him, and then slowly blinked. "How soon?"

"Within the decacycle, they said. Not for everyone, but..." Optimus swallowed. "There's a small transport passing through this star system. Ultra Magnus has given them the authorisation to pick you up and take you back to Cybertron. They'll, ah, also drop off some supplies."

Starscream cycled a slow breath. He disentangled himself from Optimus, even though the Autobot tried to reach for him, hold onto him. He folded his arms, scowled in thought, and looked away.

"Starscream, I-"

"Silence," Starscream hissed. "...Well. I hope you all die on this slagging rock."

"Starscream!"

"Go. Leave me alone, _Autobot_."

"Starscream, you know I can't do anything, we both knew this was what would happen," Optimus said. His tone was wheedling and apologetic. When Starscream only hunched his shoulders and scowled some more, he got up, wiped himself off, and closed up his panel. "I'm sorry it had to end like this," he said, and Starscream looked at him sharply.

"Like what?"

"This-...I... I wish we could have ended it on better terms. This has been... amazing..."

"But not good enough to spare me your Autobot '_justice_'," Starscream said. He got to his feet.

"I have responsibilities, Starscream," Optimus said, and his voice was firmer, harder now. Starscream bristled. "_Duties_. No matter what... we might have had, you're still a..."

"_Decepticon_?"Starscream snarled and swung his fist. The blow connected, sending Optimus sprawling on the floor. The Autobot scrambled back to his feet swiftly, but didn't return the blow. Disgusted, Starscream turned away.

When Optimus left the tent, he found the sentries and had them return to their posts. "Double the guard," he told them wearily. "We can't forget how dangerous this one is."

* * *

He was forced to walk pas the entire Autobot encampment. He held his head high and walked with as much grace and dignity as he could.

He spared Optimus one glance. It was supposed to be cold, but the pitiful look on the Autobot's face almost chastised him. Still, the worthless malfunction wasn't willing to help him, in spite of all the time they'd spent, in spite of all they'd said and done...

Starscream closed himself off to him. It was nothing more than he should have expected from 'facing a slagging Autobot anyway. Primus, what had happened to him? He wouldn't waste his time with a goodbye.

They put him in a tiny, dim cell and chained him to the wall. They fed him, checked on him, and turned the lights off for recharge time. Once they took off from the dusty little moon, the orbital cycles blended into one another. Starscream watched the stars through the tiny window, and passed the time in lonely silence.

The door clicked loudly as the lock disengaged. It slid open to reveal a broad, stocky mech with a bright white and yellow paint-job. He had an open, friendly face, though it wore a cool look.

"You're to come with me," he said. He moved into the cell and unchained Starscream from the wall. Starscream thought about attacking him, but three more guards appeared in the doorway, and he was still unarmed... He would wait for a better opportunity.

They flanked him on either side, and walked before and behind him, as they led him from the cell.

"We're docking in a couple of kliks," said White-and-Yellow.

Starscream tilted his helm. They couldn't have reached Cybertron already, could they? Had his chronometer started to malfunction? They hadn't been travelling for nearly long enough.

"Not Cybertron," the guard said. "Somewhere special for you."

Starscream's fuel tank clenched in foreboding. Still, he marched where they led him when the airlock opened.

"Welcome," said the guard as they entered a docking tunnel leading to a vast compound. Starscream glanced out the grilled windows to see a rocky, barren planet in between armoured compounds. "To the penal outpost, Akeron."


	8. The Prisoner

Akeron was once a mining outpost, designated AK943, but the little planet had long ago been gutted of all its naturally rich energon reserves. Now it had been refitted, reformatted, into a massive prison colony for all the prisoners Cybertron was either too small to accommodate or too unwilling to tolerate.

The central complex was comprised of six large compounds. They had mirrored, armoured domes and some other covered areas on the planet's inhospitable surface, but the largest part of them was buried deep underground, built into what was left of the cavernous mine network.

Starscream hated being underground. Garellus Wing, where he had been tossed, was the deepest of the six, and had the highest level of security. He wasn't surprised he had been thrown into jail without a trial. Autobots liked quick justice, something to let the crowds cheer. He was only surprised he hadn't been taken first to Cybertron to be paraded through the street before they locked him up and threw away the key.

His cell was small. He had enough room to pace a bit, even with his wingspan, but if he forgot now and then his wingtips would graze the walls and make him shudder. It was at the lowest point of the wing, deep, deep beneath Akeron's barren surface. It opened onto a broad corridor, with a lethal forcefield forming a barrier between his cell and the rest of the wing – the rest of the world.

For the first several orbital cycles, he saw nothing but those walls, save the big, black mech that brought him his oil. No energon, he noticed. He drank only what he needed.

There was a narrow, hard berth in the corner he could barely fit his wings on, but he could at least sit on it with his back resting against the wall. There was little else allowed to him.

He learned that his guard – the black mech with the oil – was called Vault. He was a mech of few words, but he wasn't unkind to Starscream. His silence was cool and professional, and his vocals, when Starscream pushed him to answer, were rough and deep. His optics were bright Autobot blue, and he had a red crest, bright against the black of his chest-plates. Starscream wondered how a mech of his size and build could be an Autobot. He was almost as tall as Starscream.

The shade of Vault's optics made Starscream think of Optimus, and he felt a pang of anger and regret where his spark should have been. He hated that strutless coward, slave to his badge and his precious _duty_. He missed him too. He wished they could have parted on better terms. He wished he could have had one last kiss.

He wished he had ripped his spark out.

He curled on his berth. The closeness of the same four walls, the knowledge he was trapped deep underground, made him tense and on edge. A seeker should be in the sky, not buried alive. He didn't know if he was dead or alive.

He covered his face with his hands and his wings sank low, tense and painful. He was completely healed up now, though his cheek still retained the scar from Driver's claw. He wondered if he would keep it forever.

He was glad for the solitude, in his moments of weakness like this.

Time passed. Starscream stopped paying attention to his chronometer. Time was meaningless in this Pit.

He paced his cell, wearing down his thrusters and singing his wingtips on the forcefield when he turned. He sat on his berth and tried to lose himself in recharge. His dreams were a sweet escape – blue optics and a strong, warm frame, the rush and caress of wind under his outspread wings. Then he would wake in his dark cell.

He woke now. It was dark – they turned out the lights at night, and made the prisoners be quiet. In the day time Starscream heard the sounds of his fellow inmates, somewhere above, but he had never seen any of them.

Now it was silent. He listened to his slow intakes for a while, and stared through the darkness at the ceiling.

His armour prickled. Something was wrong. Something had woken him. He stilled his intakes and extended his sensors. Something moved.

Starscream sprang to his feet. There was a figure outside his cell. Starscream found it was too dark for him to make out the features beyond the vague silhouette. Before Starscream could move closer to see more clearly, the figure was gone, moving swiftly away down the passage.

"Hey!" He ran to the forcefield, felt like slamming his hand against it, but stopped himself. He knew it would only burn him. "Come back here!"

"Shut up down there!" an echoing voice called from somewhere above, and Starscream recognised one of the night guards' vocals.

Bristling and tense, wings back, Starscream stalked back to his berth. Recharge never came.

* * *

Three days later, Starscream was let out of his cell.

The forcefield just flickered and then disappeared, and Starscream stared for several kliks, doubting the reality. He'd grown so used to being caged in his three walls and a barrier, that the barrier's absence seemed unthinkable. Impossible.

Then Vault appeared in the space.

"You're meant to come with me," he said. His vocals were a sweet, deep rumble. Starscream gave him a slow up and down look before rising to his feet. The seeker didn't stand as tall or proud as he once had – constant hunching, keeping his wings in tight to his body to avoid singing the tips on the forcefield all the time had changed his posture.

Vault turned and walked out of his optic-line. Starscream followed him, curious.

"You're going to eat in the mess with the other prisoners from now on," Vault went on. His tread was light for a big mech. Starscream found himself wondering if he had been a soldier or maybe an Elite Guard member. His right arm could transform into a kind of cosh for subduing prisoners, though as of yet he had not tried to use it on Starscream. He was also armed with a gatling gun mounted on his left shoulder. That reminded Starscream of Driver, but he supposed an arm-mounted gun would only remind him of someone else. "They weren't sure about letting you mix, considering your..." Vault let that sentence hang. "But you've shown good behaviour."

Starscream sneered at that. He kept a couple of steps behind the guard's powerful frame and watched his surroundings. The corridor where his little cell was located seemed to be at a very low point in the compound. The corridor was rough and bare, with visible girders and vents cross-crossing the walls and ceiling, steam drifting. The sounds of the prison echoed and clanked around him, filtering down from above. The way broadened gradually. He passed no other cells. It sloped gradually upward in a wide spiral.

Vault led him to a set of heavy bulkhead doors guarded by broad, stone-faced mechs. Starscream eyed them, and subtly ran his sensors over them to get the measure of the silent sentinels.

The space Vault guided him into was a vast open hall. The ceiling was so high up it was invisible – the hall seemed to be at the base of a channel that ran almost the whole length of the subterranean compound, and when Starscream glanced up he could see floor upon floor of balconies, sparkling lights, faces...

There were tables set out, row after row, and the hall was crowded with mechs.

A hush fell over the entire crowd as Vault and Starscream entered. It began with those nearest the door, and spread like a virus throughout the whole hall.

On the far side of the room was a wide hatch to a kitchen area, and they were serving up-

_Energon_? He thought. His fuel tank gurgled softly.

He didn't spare Vault a backward glance as he stepped into the hall.

Under the scrutiny of so many optics, Starscream found his pride again. He drew himself up straighter, and let his wings fan out to their full breadth. He took up space and commanded attention. He held his head high and had his shoulders back – no longer hunched or contained, no longer submissive.

The clicks of his heels on the hard floor echoed in the cavernous chamber as he made his way across the centre of the hall. Vault took a station by one of the silent guards and watched his charge along with everybot else. They seemed to part like a sea to let him through. Every mech in that hall must have recognised him, and if they didn't recognise the mech, they would recognise the symbols on his wings.

He was half way across the hall when the first mech grabbed him.

A hard servo closed around Starscream's wrist and forced him to pause. He turned slowly.

The mech in question was a hulking brute, some ex-soldier or hunter or something. His grizzled face was pulled into a sneer.

"New energon," he muttered, and tried to pull Starscream down into his lap. "Is it a mech or a femme?"

Starscream grabbed the mech's hand with his free one and twisted. The mech yelped as Starscream wrenched him off him and twisted his wrist until it broke. His lip curled in disgust, and an instant later his fist connected with the mech's face.

Chaos broke out. They were on him in an instant – inmates first, swearing and blustering, everybot with something to prove. Starscream swatted them off him with fists and claws and thrusters. Then the guards were pulling _them_ off him, and he heard the _thwap _and crunch of batons. One caught him on the wing and he yelled as agony blazed across his sensornet.

Moments later he was pinned to the ground, helm ringing from another baton blow. His sensornet was screaming, and he was snarling, but laughing all the same... for the first time since they threw him in this Pit he felt alive.

He was pinned under a heap of guards, and even when most of them got off him – leaving him cuffed – one remained, pinning him down with his weight on Starscream's back.

"Bad Decepticon," the guard said, and Starscream snickered when he recognised Vault's rumbling vocals thrumming against his back.

* * *

Starscream was led down the way he had come. This time he had two large, heavily modified guards holding each of his arms, while his wrists were behind his back in stasis cuffs. They held him up so that his toes grazed the floor, since the cuffs' paralysing current meant he couldn't walk by himself, under his own power. Vault strode in front, and Starscream watched his graceful lines, the movement of his slim hips and small aft, the breadth of his shoulders. He missed Optimus, he mused – or, at least, he missed having somebot to 'face. If he didn't find anyone worthy amongst his fellow inmates, he might have to work on the guard instead. He yawned. So much for good behaviour.

When they reached his cell, they did not stop. Instead they went straight past it and continued to descend even deeper. The path became closer, narrower, darker. Starscream heard creaks and hisses, strange mechanical groans, but they passed not a soul.

At last they reached what must be the bottom-most floor. Here there was a long, slim corridor lit with a line of yellow strips on the stone ceiling. It was silent, save for a steady, far away drip.

The left wall was blank. On the right was a row of broad openings, all dark and empty save one, which shimmered and flickered with a barrier forcefield. In the far corner, up near the ceiling, a plasma cannon turret tracked their every movement.

"The back one," Vault said. The guards holding and flanking Starscream grunted, nodded, and frogmarched him forward.

Starscream tried to catch a glimpse of what was behind the forcefield of the room they passed, but they moved too quickly, and the forcefield reflected the flickering light too well.

The room they brought him to was a grey stone cube, next to the occupied cell. They tossed him in and he clattered to the floor, swearing as his wings caught under him. Vault looked at the guards sharply.

The room was smaller than Starscream's former cell, and didn't have the luxury of a berth. Just three blank, grey walls, and one hold for the forcefield.

"I'm going to take your stasis cuffs off, Starscream," Vault said. "If you attack, I will shoot you, and so will my colleagues here."

"How long do you expect me to stay down here?" Starscream spat even as the big black mech knelt behind him to remove the cuffs.

"Until you've thought about what you did," Vault said, and Starscream sneered. "Then you'll be able to play with the other bots again."

"That mech deserved worse," he said. "Did you see the way he grabbed me?"

"Uhuh, but I could hardly blame him for it. You're a pretty piece of aft, Starscream," Vault said with a gentle laugh. He removed Starscream's stasis cuffs, and slapped the seeker's aft as he moved away. Starscream snarled and went for him. Vault's arm transformed into a cosh which he brought down on the back of Starscream's helm. Starscream yowled and swore, and in the moment he was disoriented, the three guards retreated from the cell and activated the forcefield.

Starscream got to his feet. "You'll pay for that," he growled.

"Don't worry, Decepticon. You'll be in good company."

Starscream frowned and gave the guard a puzzled look. Vault offered no answers, only a small, asymmetrical smile. The trio moved away. Starscream listened to their footprints retreat. Then, the lights in the corridor went out, one by one. His cell had a little light of its own, which remained on, although it flickered.

He paced for a while, then sat down against the wall.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there. He slipped into a dozing stasis for some of it, and a deeper, heavier sleep for joors at a time. His chronometer placed it at around two orbital cycles, though it seemed like much longer. His fuel tank screamed for something to fill it, and his frame grew slow and lethargic, sluggish. He felt light-headed and tired.

When the lights outside went on again, his optics almost shorted it seemed so bright.

When his optics were able to focus again, they picked out the sleekly powerful shape of Vault in the doorway, with a tray of fuel in his hand.

"I thought you could use something," he said.

"This is familiar," Starscream muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Give me that."

Vault transformed his free hand into a baton again and waved it. "Ah, ah. Bad 'Con."

"All Decepticons are _bad_," Starscream said. "That's the point." He sat against the back wall, wings low, legs carelessly splayed and drawn up. He saw Vault's optics flick down. He didn't care, let him look. "But I'm the worst."

"That was quite an impression you made up there the other cycle," Vault said as he deactivated the forcefield, stepped into the compact space of the cell, and reactivated it with a remote command. His tall, foreboding presence seemed to take up most of the cell. Starscream sat in his shadow and looked up at him.

"The fuel," he said crisply.

Vault sank down onto one knee and offered Starscream the tray. Starscream reached for it. "This is...?"

It wasn't his usual coarse, tasteless oil. Instead, Vault had brought him a selection of energon goodies, oil cakes, rust sticks, and a cube of sweet energon laced with iron filings. He looked at Vault in incomprehension.

"A gift of goodwill from a mutual friend," Vault said. "I'm just the delivery mech."

Starscream slowly blinked and shot Vault a suspicious look. "And does this _friend _have a designation?"

Vault gave a cryptic little smirk. "Maybe. Maybe they'll reveal that to you when they feel the time is right."

"Hm." Starscream took the fuel and dug in. He was aware of Vault watching, but he was too hungry to care He descended upon the fuel like a starving mech which, he supposed, he was. Vault watched him silently, never moving from where he knelt.

When Starscream had taken the edge off his hunger, he set the tray aside. He kept it close by in case Vault should try to take it from him. He picked up one of the remaining rust sticks and sucked on the end.

"Better?" Vault asked.

Starscream bit off the end of the stick, crunched it, and swallowed. He licked his lips. "Much-"

He was cut off as the black mech leaned in and pressed his lips to Starscream's. Starscream made a startled sound, and Vault withdrew slightly.

"Is this a gift from my friend upstairs too?" Starscream asked, arching a brow.

Vault smirked. "Maybe." When Starscream looked at him sceptically, he said, "No, this is just me. But you should know, in this place, for a mech like you... there's a lot of bots who'd be willing to grant you certain favours..."

"In return for certain _other_ favours, am I right?" Starscream said. He widened his legs a little to accommodate Vault's bulk. "Well, a lot of bots won't get that privilege. You? Hmm.." He licked Vault's lower lip and he felt the big mech shiver. "I'm not a drone who trades _that _kind of favour. But I like your frame, and you just brought me a nice meal. I've been locked up for a long time, and a mech gets lonely."

"Hmm..." Vault kissed him again, and this time it was harder and surer. Vault was no shy , virtuous Prime, that was for sure, and Starscream was glad of it. He'd been glitching, going without, and even though if this were any other mech he would have ripped their head off with his bare claws, he was willing to allow them both this little indulgence... especially if it benefited him in the long run. He could do with making a few allies, and, pride aside, he was prepared to use _any _means necessary. The same way he had always approached anything.

So, he kissed Vault back. He encouraged and welcomed him, opening his mouth and sliding his glossa out to meet the other mech's. Vault had large, heavy hands, and they roamed and kneaded Starscream's curvy, sleek, and responsive frame. He touched him back – he slid his hands over the broad, smooth chest plates, the strong shoulders and arms. He splayed his thighs wide, and Vault wasted no time grinding in against his panel.

"Oh...!" Starscream gasped into the kiss, and Vault's hands slipped down under his aft to lift, knead, spread.

"Want you on all fours, Decepticon," Vault rumbled against Starscream's audio.

"Maybe I want _you_ on all fours, _Autobot_," Starscream hissed back.

Vault's vocals rumbled nicely as he laughed. He grabbed Starscream's hips and pulled, and Starscream was pleasantly startled at the ease with which the Autobot manhandled him onto his hands and knees.

"Open up," Vault commanded. Starscream was about to, when he felt the big mech's blunt fingers pushing and groping at the edges of his panel. "I'll just do it for you..." He pushed against the invisible pressure release catch, and the panel clicked and then slid open. Starscream shivered and gasped. His spike pressurised, and Vault grabbed it and tugged.

The fingers of his other hand rubbed at the sensitive, flexible rim of Starscream's valve. "Hn..." Starscream arched and went tight and sweetly tense when Vault licked his valve. "Tastes sweet..."

"Mmm... ahh!" Starscream was starting to notice a trend in the mechs that took him prisoner. More fool him for constantly giving in to them, he thought. But he loved to please, after all. He swayed and backed up his hips, which earned him a light slap to the aft. Vault kept lapping at Starscream's soft, wet valve, tasting his lubricant and letting his deep, heavy engines purr and rumble in pleasure. Starscream wondered again what alt-mode the big mech had.

"You're, ah... big for an Autobot," Starscream said in between gasps and short, breathy moans. Vault tugged and rubbed Starscream's spike harder and rougher, almost painful but acutely pleasurable to the touch-starved seeker. Starscream bucked under his rough attentions.

"Heh," Vault chuckled, and Starscream felt the vibrations against his valve. Vault pushed his glossa into Starscream's valve, penetrating the little hole and pushing against the sensitive membranes of its internal walls. Starscream moaned and hung his head.

After glossa-fucking Starscream for several delicious kliks, Vault pulled back. He licked the curve of Starscream's aft, then bit and suckled. Then he said, "You don't know how big I am... yet."

"Mmm, well maybe it's time I found out," Starscream replied. He pushed his aft up higher, and Vault removed his hand from Starscream's spike so he could knead the curving planes of the seeker's aft with both hands. He spread him firmly, watching the way the valve moved and flexed. His thumb rubbed against Starscream's waste port, making the seeker yelp quietly and shake. A fresh slick of lubricant coated his inner valve walls and trickled from the soft lips, visible to the black mech.

"Mm... look at that..." Vault ignored Starscream's unsubtle command and instead used the pads of his fingers to spread the outer lips of Starscream's valve and reveal the glistening wet inner membranes. He licked thickly, making Starscream's toes point and his intakes come quick and short. "I knew you'd be just as pretty down here as the rest of your nice frame."

Starscream snickered breathlessly. "I'm gorgeous everywhere, stupid."

That earned him another slap. This time it was lighter, and applied to the seeker's exposed valve instead of his aft. Starscream yelped and his frame jerked, but Vault grabbed his hips hard and started to lick over his waste port.

"Ahh... what're you doing? Are you going to 'face me or not? Don't waste my time-!"

Vault growled and pinched Starscream's thigh. He licked Starscream's aft more firmly, and Starscream moaned and whined to feel the pointed tip of the mech's glossa push and manipulate the rim of his port.

"Ah, no... mm, valve. Want your spike in my valve...!"

"So commands the mighty Lord Starscream."

"Don't mock me," Starscream snarled.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Vault knelt up and pressed his chassis against Starscream's back, his spike against Starscream's aft. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this... let me enjoy it."

"How long?" Starscream asked. He pushed his frame up, liking the heat and weight of the mech's frame against his own. Vault rubbed his spike against Starscream's valve and aft for a while, and then finally lined himself up, used one hand to spread Starscream's valve wide, and started to push his length inside.

"Oh, uhmm... _frag_ that's nice..." Vault rocked forward and forced his thick spike into Starscream's tender valve. The seeker moaned at the insistent stretch. Vault pushed inside, making Starscream accommodate him, make room for him, with no questions asked. Starscream's optics flared when Vault pushed _deep _and kept going.

"Slagging Pit, Autobot- ohhwwww!"

"Hurts?"

"No... just... mmmm! My last partner was smaller..."

"Oh yeah?" Vault kneaded Starscream's curvy hips and ground in to the hilt. He held himself there for a few kliks and Starscream panted as he tried to get used to the large intrusion. It felt good – a slight sting, heady pleasure, and the potent sensation of being _filled_, stretched, opened up, _taken_. He had wanted this, he needed this.

"Most bots are smaller," Vault said, and Starscream heard the smirk in his voice without even having to see his face.

He felt like he was ready now. He wiggled his hips to encourage the other bot to start moving.

Vault took the hint. He rolled his hips back and forward and started up a steady, powerful rhythm. Starscream could feel the strength in his frame, and it made him purr. He arched his back and rocked his hips back against Vault's, meeting each rhythmic thrust the black mech made.

"Y-you... ah..." Starscream licked his lips. His expression was one of bliss. Vault reached around him and hooked two thick fingers into his mouth. Starscream growled and licked at them as the pads pressed against the inside side of his cheek.

"I what?" Vault's vocals were deeper and rougher. Starscream felt the heat rolling off his frame, and was sure his own frame was answering, spark or no. He moved faster and Vault sped up to meet him. He thrust deep each time, keeping even and steady, slowly building up a buzz, a heat and pressure in Starscream's valve, his whole system, his sensornet tingling.

Starscream nipped at Vault's fingers and the mech withdrew them – only to gently wrap that hand around the seeker's throat instead. "I said," Starscream began, his vocals breathy. "You never d-did answer me... how long have you wanted me? Since I came here...?"

"Before then, Decepticon. A long time before then..." Vault applied a slight pressure around Starscream's throat. The sensation was interesting – it put Starscream even more in Vault's power, which he shouldn't have enjoyed, but it also made his CPU heat up since his vents blocked and stalled. This in turn made him feel light-headed, a kind of high all on its own which only served to accentuate the sweetness in his valve. Vault's other hand found Starscream's spike again and tugged. Vault started to vary his rhythm, becoming erratic and more urgent. Starscream whined and bucked. Vault went harder and faster, and Starscream's valve felt like it was alight, aflame with pleasure. Lubricant trickled down his thighs and splashed on the dusty floor. Starscream pushed his forehead against the ground and stretched his arms out, latching his claws into the floor above his head. His frame stretched out and arching prettily, Vault watching him and groaning in appreciation, the seeker yowled as his overload crept closer. He tried to fight it – this felt too good to give into so soon, too good for it to be over already.

Vault leaned over him, pressing his frame against Starscream's trembling back. His vocals purred roughly against Starscream's audio, "Give in... Don't worry. We won't be done for a long time." He licked Starscream's audio.

Starscream gasped and shuddered. His frame writhed, and his valve clenched down on the roughly thrusting spike. He came with a loud, broken cry and cut scores in the floor with his claws.

* * *

"Mm, that's it, Decepticon," Vault growled. He let go of Starscream's throat and instead pushed down on the back of his helm. His other hand hooked under the seeker's thigh and hiked it up, twisting Starscream's lower half sideways. He straddled the other thigh and kept thrusting. He released Starscream's helm, content that the seeker would stay down, and leaned back so he could watch his spike sliding wetly and quickly in and out of the seeker's stretched, tender hole. Starscream's transfluid had made a silvery pool beneath him, though his spike was beginning to re-pressurise. His valve, meanwhile, was drenched with lubricant, and his inner thighs were a slippery mess. The sight made Vault groan in need and lust.

He reached down between those thighs and, holding his spike in deep for a moment, spread one of the valve's outer folds with the pad of his thumb. "Mmm..."

Starscream writhed, and Vault chuckled softly to see the seeker wriggling on his spike like a spoilt pleasure bot. He felt so good around him, his tight little valve pulsing and rippling, so wet, so hot. He rocked more slowly, then ground in with a slow, circular motion, just enjoying the way the valve shivered and gripped him, and the sweet little whine the seeker made. Those wings kept moving – trembling and fanning. Vault wasn't sure if he dared touch them yet – he knew a seeker could take that the wrong way, and the last thing he wanted right now was Starscream to change his mind.

"Ah... okay seeker," Vault said. He slid his spike out of Starscream's valve, hard as that was, and pushed Starscream's thigh up and back, opening him wide, so he could watch the way the seeker's valve gaped at first – see the tender internals and the glistening wetness within – before slowly tightening up and quivering. Starscream yowled and clawed the floor.

"Why did you _stop_?" the seeker snapped. Vault slapped his thigh lightly.

"Get on your back."

"Help me," Starscream commanded. Vault obliged, and pulled the lithe bot around, being careful of his wings, until he lay on his back instead of that curvy, optic-catching cockpit. The red glass was scratched and scuffed, and smeared with transfluid. The chamber within was teasingly visible, though dark.

"Good." Vault hooked his hands under Starscream's knees and pushed up and back. "Hold."

Starscream gave him a dark look but still obeyed, much to Vault's surprise and pleasure. He held his knees open just like that, so Vault could let go. Starscream kept himself spread, thighs splayed, valve exposed and shivering, spike straining. Vault smirked. He spread the little valve with his thumbs and nudged the broad, blunt head of his spike against the opening again.

"Fraggit Autobot... stop wasting time..." Starscream writhed, hips moving, all the time keeping himself open. His cheeks were flushed and his optics were a bright, feverish scarlet. Vault watched the valve flex, felt it tighten and shiver against his spike-head.

"As you command," Vault said playfully. He pushed his length back inside the delicious, wonderful heat of the seeker's body. His frame shuddered, and he felt himself tighten up in anticipation of his oncoming overload.

He knelt up so he could watch the seeker, all spread out and open for him, all stuffed full of his spike. He held onto the lithe mech's hips and thrust fast and hard. Starscream panted, then gasped, and then he was arching. His claws dug into the softer plating of his legs as he struggled to keep his trembling thighs open. Vault growled and did the job for him – he pushed on the backs of Starscream's thighs until his knees were on the ground and the seeker's body was curled, almost bent double, Vault leaning over him and drilling down. Starscream gaped up at him, his expression one of dishevelled wonder.

His hands now free, Starscream held onto Vault's wrists. His head tilted back and his optics pressed closed. His mouth was open, his glossa out, and his intakes came in great ragged pants. Oral lubricant eased in a small trickle from the corner of his mouth. Once he was done with the valve, Vault decided he would have a go with the seeker's mouth.

His hips hammered swiftly in quick, jarring thrusts. He grit his teeth and pressed his optics closed. His body tensed as the current built, the rush came, building and building until finally it broke like a monstrous wave and he was coming, still pounding deep and brutal into the seeker's valve, spurting his transfluid even deeper, filling the sleek mech with the thick, silvery liquid. Starscream overloaded with him, and through the rushing in his audios he heard the seeker _scream_.

* * *

In the cell next door to Starscream's, the prisoner – the only other inmate incarcerated on this forgotten floor – stirred in his sleep.

His dreams had taken on a strange cast as the sounds from the next room filtered into his unconscious processor's thoughts.

Gradually, intake by intake, his stasis lifted, and he realised, groggily, that the sounds he heard were not only a part of his dream.

He shutterblinked slowly. He had been in stasis for a long time. He spent most of his time in a deep stasis sleep, dreaming away the years.

The nature of his dreams today were different. Those sounds, the breathy gasps, pants, sighs, screams, they had infiltrated his processor, and so now he awoke fresh from a fevered, searing fantasy, already running warm. Running warm for the first time in stellar cycles.

He glanced around his cell. He was still alone, at least. He lay on a flat, hard berth against the back wall. Looking to his left, he saw the force field was still in place. No bot stood outside.

No, the sounds were coming from... He stared in blank confusion at the adjoining wall. He had been alone down here for so long, he could barely fathom that there could be another bot inhabiting his block.

What was happening in there? It sounded almost like torture, the mech was screaming so-...

He swallowed, and frowned. Very slowly, his joints creaking and groaning with every movement, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned on his hands.

He crawled closer to the wall and set his audio against it.

Another scream, and the grunts of another, lower set of vocals, came to him, muffled, through the stone.

* * *

Starscream was on his front again, stretched out in a lazy sprawl on the rough floor. His armour and cockpit was scuffed and smeared with fluids, and his panel was still open, his spike half pressurised. He whimpered and yelled each time Vault thrust into him particularly deep or firm. He seemed to be going on until the little valve could hold no more transfluid, though they had already made quite the mess of Starscream's cell.

Starscream was pleasantly surprised with how good a lover Vault was. He was rough and hard, almost brutal really, but Starscream was up to the challenge and he enjoyed the intensity. Optimus had been pleasant company and a sweet lover – comfortable, a nice way to pass the time. He still missed him he guessed – it had been nice to have an ally, even if he had betrayed him in the end. It had been nice to corrupt him, too – a nice swell to Starscream's dark ego. But Vault could satisfy him in a way the smaller Autobot never could have done. Starscream liked big mechs, he liked strong hands and thick spikes, deep voices, hard touches, intense, processor-blowing overloads.

Starscream stiffened and shivered suddenly, and he let out a strangled yell. The black mech had finally worked up the nerve to touch his wings.

"Ohhh, yes... mmmm, just be careful be c- ohh_hhhh_!" Vault ran his blunt, hot fingers along the lower edges of the wings, then rubbed his palmsin rough circles all over the surfaces. Starscream wailed and overloaded once again, and afterwards his frame went limp in his guard's arms.

"You like that, huh?" Vault's vocals were a gritty rumble, music to Starscream's audios.

"Mmm... yeah. Do Autobots... mm, do Autobots understand about seekers' wings?" Starscream asked. He lay in a melted heap on the floor, with Vault's frame on top of him, his arms holding him, his spike deep in him still – and still hard.

"I told you, seeker," Vault said and very lightly slapped Starscream's thigh, playfully. "I wasn't always an Autobot."

"Did you?"

"Maybe I forgot..." Vault nuzzled Starscream's cheek and rocked his hips. Starscream whined as the sweet friction caused another small overload to ripple through his hypersensitive valve. "That nice?"

"Nnngh... s-stop... yes, but..."

"Too much? That's okay, we can take a break." He slid his spike out of Starscream's valve. "Ah... could you take care of this for me?"

Starscream propped himself up on his elbows and looked around as Vault rolled off him. When he saw Vault's straining, thick length, hard and glistening wet, he whistled.

"In the spirit of reciprocity..." Starscream called on his last reserves of strength to push himself onto all fours. Then he crawled down, while Vault lay on his back, and took the big spike between his lips and into his throat. He worked Vault over with his mouth, taking him as deep as he could, licking, swallowing, bobbing his head and moaning. He could taste the big mech's come, and his own lubricants, and he got both smeared all over his lips, and some on his cheeks and chin. Vault guided his head with light, easy hands, until the big mech came, arching his frame and rolling his hips up, his spike jamming deep into Starscream's throat. The seeker choked and spluttered, tried to swallow. When Vault lowered his hips Starscream raised his head and let the spike slip from his lips. Some of Vault's come spilled from his mouth, the rest he managed to drink down.

"Ahh... mm, beautiful. You look beautiful with a face full of come, seeker."

* * *

The prisoner in the next cell sat on his berth and kept his audio to the wall. His spark felt tight and hot and swollen at the same time. His core temperature was spiking, and condensation glistered on his armour. Those vocals, those _sounds_... unmistakeable, now he listened more. Not torture – oh no, something very different.

The two mechs were talking again.

"Bring me more of these when you visit next time."

"If you're good."

"I wasn't _good_?!"

A dark chuckle. "You were all right."

Some more mumbled talk, then quiet. Breaths, a small moan. Then a light slap.

"I'll see you later. Some of us have a job to do."

"A job you do so well, I'm sure."

He heard the mechs move around, and then, "Until my next watch, Starscream."

His intakes were loud in his audios. His throat felt dry, there was a thick lump inside it. He blinked and looked to the door, just as the guard – a black mech he didn't recognise – passed by. He didn't even look into the cell. His steps receded down the corridor outside and silence once more fell upon the lonely Omega Block.

On the other side of the wall there was quiet, too. If he strained, he thought he could hear deep, sighing intakes. Then there was movement... gently shifting. He imagined the inmate getting up, sitting himself down on a berth. His frame was probably stiff, maybe a little sore, tender... he saw the way he might hold himself, the way his wings might tense or droop...

He drew breath to speak, but his vocaliser glitched and only silence came out.

_Starscream..._

Megatron pressed his forehead against the cool stone wall, his palms on either side, burning optics closed. "S..."

Pain and need twined and curled in his spark. His cold, old frame that he had thought so dead after being buried down here for so long, felt hot, and the surface of his armour prickled. His fingers curled and the pads pressed against the wall.

Starscream was silent.

Starscream had died. He _knew _that. Even down in this tomb word had reached him. He'd heard various accounts. His own memory files were fuzzy and corrupt. The most believable story had explained the forcefield that had ruined all his plans that fateful day, the shield that had protected the organic city and simultaneously sealed Megatron alone inside the blast zone. He had been lucky to survive that. Broken, it had been insultingly easy for the tiny Prime to take him down... to ruin him...

He curled one hand into a fist and slammed it against the wall. The silence took on a different atmosphere.

Starscream had died so many times at Megatron's own hand. He had been so angry when he heard... heard the seeker had fallen, finally and once and for all, and _he _had no part in it. He had always known, deep inside his spark, that they would be the ones to finish each other. To have that proven false, ripped away from him with everything else, had been a final blow to his cracking spirit.

Starscream deserved to die. For his treachery, for his betrayal. For acting true to his caustic nature, his self-serving spark. Starscream was the embodiment of the cause Megatron created.

Starscream was alive.

With the hand he punched the wall with, Megatron now clawed down the smooth stone surface. His throat hurt, his vocaliser stinging from lack of use. "S-... _Star_..."

"Who's there?" Starscream snapped, and Megatron sighed silently at the sound of his voice. He had been alone for so long... just the occasional interaction with whatever guard brought his food, but he chose not to engage in their needling games. His informers had thinned, their visits grown more infrequent as their loyalty to their fallen leader wavered. He was used to silence. Starscream's familiar voice, loaded with history, all tied up in his spark, was like bathing in cool water. A blessed relief.

Was he awake? Was he waking up?

"Starscream."

"Sh-shut up... _I'm_..." Steps, the high, clicking of those heels. Starscream's clawed hands hitting the wall. Megatron shivered. He wondered if their hands would touch, if not for the wall in between them. "You're...?"

He heard the confusion in the seeker's voice. Heard the uncertainty. For the first time in stellar cycles, Megatron's lips curved into a tiny, crooked smile.

"Your leader speaks."

There was a thick, heavy silence.

"...They said you were rotting in the Stockade."

Megatron cycled a long, slow sigh. "If a mech is rotting, does it really matter where he does it?"

His throat was still dry, and it hurt it to talk. His vocals sounded sound hoarse and croaky, but Starscream recognised him...

A low snarl. "Some _mighty _leader."

Megatron laid his cheek against the wall. His optics were still closed. He cycled his intakes deeply, trying to keep them slow and even. His frame was still running hot, a deep need turning his internals into flame. He swallowed and cursed himself, a foolish old mech too contact-starved to care if it was his sworn enemy he was craving.

"...Don't ignore me."

Megatron could have laughed. Starscream would fare far worse down here than he had.

"As you wish," he said. Starscream hissed and clawed the wall. Megatron heard the scraping. "I heard _you _were offline."

"You sound disappointed."

Megatron couldn't answer that. He couldn't answer truthfully – that the opposite was true, that his spark was singing in triumph and aching with need that the mech in the next cell was alive and _so close_. He couldn't lie either, though... not after so long utterly alone. He couldn't make his first connection a sham, even if it was only Starscream. Especially since it was Starscream.

Starscream huffed leaned his back against the wall. Megatron pressed himself against the wall of his cell, trying to feel the warmth of another frame through the cold stone.

"I'm the Last Decepticon," Starscream said. Megatron wished his vocals weren't so muffled. "Did you know?"

"Hm? Last...?"

"I was out near some slavers' planet... Naresus? Whatever. Looking for my armies."

"_My_armies."

"No mech's armies. There _are_ no armies!" Megatron swallowed thickly. A fresh ache in his spark, a shot of pain. "It's all gone..." A frustrated sigh. "Dead or defected. Exiled or rotting in _here_. Thrown on a scrapheap on some backwater junk planet. Picked apart for spares."

Megatron detected something dark in Starscream's tone. He would ask later... if he could. If Starscream stayed chatty. He didn't think he could bear it if the seeker went silent on him.

He had built his army out of nothing, millions of years ago. It had been a different time, to be sure, one of unrest and passion, a time when bots were more likely to be taken up with fiery rebellion and righteous spirit against the ruling Elite. It would be harder to do the same, now the Autobots controlled the very sparks of mechs from here all the way to Earth. At least, that was how he heard it told.

"The Last Decepticon," he mused, rolling the title on his glossa. "And me... the first."

Starscream paused, and then snickered. "What a team. Next you're going to suggest we join forces."

Megatron bit the inside of his lip. The thought had crossed his mind. It had crossed his mind several times before, following Starscream's initial betrayal. He had tried to reason with the seeker to abandon his vendetta, his consuming quest for vengeance, to coax him back with the promise of ruling Cybertron by his side... A foolish, romantic notion, which the seeker had unsurprisingly scorned. Starscream couldn't stand being second, he realised now. Even being after rising to the highest rank a mech could within Megatron's army, being _second _to Megatron had rankled. Starscream's foolish, childish pride had been the ruin of them all...

When Megatron didn't answer, Starscream laughed. It wasn't _quite _cruel, Megatron thought. Perhaps more incredulous.

"Well, I guess we'd have a better chance when we break out if we do it together..."

"...Break out?"

Did the seeker think he'd never thought to try that? He had almost died too many times, before the stellar cycles had caught up with him.

"Of course, old mech," Starscream said, and now his tone _was _cruel. "You might be happy to waste away down here in this tomb, but I have other things to do. And besides..."

"...What?"

"...Nothing."

Megatron sat back and opened his optics. "A seeker needs to fly."

There was a startled, quiet sound from the jet on the other side of the wall. "How did-?"

"I know you, Starscream." _Better than you could guess_, he thought. _Better now, after all this time to think..._

"...You always thought you did," Starscream muttered, and Megatron chuckled sadly.

"I know you better than that guard."

This time the silence was thick with burning tension.

"You... heard that..." Starscream's vocals were a low growl.

"You were hardly quiet, Starscream. I see you haven't changed."

Starscream spluttered and squawked. Megatron smiled darkly. All he wanted was a reaction, though the memory files opened unbidden. Long, long ago, too long. They seemed to come from another life, another world. A time when he and Starscream had been united, and not just in name and rank.

Megatron shifted. He sat with his back to the wall. He tilted his head back and rested it against the stone. His frame had begun to cool off, but he felt his spark warm again at the memories. Those _sounds _Starscream had been making. He had been able to draw those out of him, once upon a time.

"Is that all you have to say?" Starscream said stiffly.

"...What do you want me to say? What do you want to hear?" Megatron felt tired. Absence had made the spark grow fonder, he decided... Starscream truly had not changed. "That he's a thousand light years below you? That you're allowing yourself to be used?"

Starscream hissed. "You don't know anything."

"It's none of my business, except I have to listen to it. It's hard to recharge with you screaming."

"Frag you! As soon as I get out of here I'm going to kill you."

"You never managed it before."

Silence fell again. The lights dimmed slowly and went out, and faintly Megatron heard the calls for lights out up above.

He listened for Starscream's voice for a long time, and he tried to hear the seeker's intakes. At some point he must have fallen into recharge.

He awoke in the next morning stiff, still curled by the wall. Groaning tiredly, he stretched himself out on the berth properly, lying on his back and trying to ease the ache in his ageing joints. Had he always felt this old?

He wondered if Starscream had recharged. He wondered if he was awake now... He listened, but all he heard was quiet, and then the softly approaching steps of a guard bringing them their morning fuel.

The lights were on in the corridor and in his cell, and his optics stung and felt dry.

It wasn't the black mech today. Today it was a slim femme with a cyberninja's build and a light blue paint job. No ex 'Con this one, she was petite and compact, but her icy optics were hard, and Megatron knew she was packing an EMP and a set of laser knives. She served him oil silently, and he barely reacted to or acknowledged her presence.

He stared at the ceiling, and let his oil congeal.

Starscream didn't speak to him at all that cycle.


	9. The First Decepticon

The city was burning. Starscream coasted over it, riding the warm air currents rising from the flames and surveying the impressive destruction below, which he had had such an instrumental part in. This city had been great, before Megatron's troops had descended upon it. Now it was a sea of shadow and fire.

He found Megatron in the shell of what had been a government office, a large, towering structure. The top half of the central hub was aflame, but Megatron had taken up temporary court in the gutted atrium on the western wing. The ceiling was burned away, leaving the large room open to the elements. Mechs had been posted as guards in the surrounding area, though Starscream would have been surprised if there was still a surviving Autobot within cannon range.

The guards acknowledged Starscream's approach with cool optics and a quick, crackly comm exchange. Every 'Con recognised Starscream. With a string of ostentatious and theatrical victories, he had made sure of it.

Megatron had not requested his presence, but Starscream had decided that the proud rebel leader should grant his most loyal soldier an audience anyway.

He transformed and landed gracefully, though not lightly. He wanted every mech to notice his arrival.

Megatron had set a chair at the end of the room, facing a council table with other seats around it. With Megatron in it the humble chair became a throne. There were only two other mechs in the council room. Megatron's closest lieutenant, Shockwave, was across the city leading the uprising there, so Megatron had chosen to keep company with another adviser, a slim mech called Phase, and a hefty, brawny general who went by the designation of Claymore.

Starscream ignored them, and stalked toward his leader.

Megatron watched him. Starscream met those optics, smiled, and sank into a kneeling bow. He had one hand on his cockpit, and his head down. In a smooth voice he said, "My lord." He dipped his wings deferentially.

After a long pause, Megatron cycled a slow intake and said, "Starscream. I do not recall summoning you to my war council."

"I came as soon as I heard about the fall of Braxen, my lord."

Braxen was a small outlying city, which Megatron had lost to the Autobots recently. Until the Elite's surge he had held the place as a secure Decepticon outpost. Many 'Cons had lost their sparks when the Autobots took back the city.

"To offer your condolences?"

"To offer my service." He looked up and boldly met his leader's optics. The hard, burning strength in them made Starscream shiver. His wings trembled for a moment and his spark stirred in admiration and awe. His comrades found Starscream arrogant, but Starscream knew he was the most passionate soldier under their banner.

"You are already in my service, Starscream. I need aerial support, but I already have bombers. The Autobots have no real air power. What use are dog-fighters against a flightless enemy?"

Starscream's spark twisted, stabbing pain making his wings dip further. "My lord, please, if you would allow me to take the brand-"

Megatron stood and held a hand up for silence. "Enough. You are new to our cause... you're young and fiery, but do you really have what it takes to truly swear your spark to this rebellion? To me?"

_I do, my lord... And I would, if you would let me._

Starscream drew breath to reply, when suddenly the building was rocked by an explosion. Starscream was thrown to his hands and knees. He looked up to see chaos – slender Phase was buried under the remains of the east wall, either offline or in stasis, and Claymore... shot. There was a crater where his spark ought to be.

Starscream's audios were ringing. He looked around – _there_. Megatron was picking himself up, using the table for support. He had a smouldering cannon wound on his shoulder, but otherwise appeared unharmed. Until he stumbled. Another heavy shot had caught his leg. He was unable to put weight on it, and bared his teeth, snarling in rage and frustration. He lifted his cannon toward the sky, and Starscream followed with his optics.

His mouth fell open. There was something _flying_, some great behemoth, and it was firing on them.

He used his thrusters to boost himself to his feet and forward _fast_, and he slammed into Megatron just before the next shot took him out. They tumbled to the rubble-strewn ground in a tangle of limbs, beneath a small overhang of what was left of the roof.

"_Starscream_?"

Starscream swallowed, but there was no time to be embarrassed. He pushed himself up and peered skyward. The ship was circling wide, slowly coming in for another sweep.

Megatron pushed him out of the way, aimed his cannon, and fired several times, but the ship was out of range. He tried to take a step, tried to take off, but he stumbled again. His leg was too damaged. Starscream caught him before he could fall. He wedged his shoulder under his leader's arm and pressed one hand against his back, the other to the centre of his chest. Megatron looked at him darkly, but before either of them could speak there was the sound of running footsteps, and then they were being fired on again. They wheeled around. From the rubble of the western wing silhouettes appeared. Small, compact silhouettes, wielding hand-held blasters. The Autobots had them surrounded. Somehow, with the help of that ship, they had made it past the guards.

Starscream snarled and raised his arm. His pulse cannon exploded to life, and Megatron mirrored him with his fusion cannon. They opened fire simultaneously. Light flared, brilliant pink and white bright enough to sear Starscream's optics. The Autobots had blasters too, and the ship was coming back around.

"Where's the _Harbinger_?"

"It should be here." Megatron snarled. He pulled free of Starscream and drew his swords. Blaster-fire zinged off their armour. Starscream hissed as a shot nicked a wing. Starscream was reluctant to let Megatron stand alone on his damaged leg, but his leader was already charging forward to meet their enemies. Energon coated his back, and his lower leg was barely intact. Starscream's spark surged with awe and shame that he wasn't already doing the same. He bared his sharp teeth, and leapt into the fray.

The battle was short and brutal. Even with their superior numbers, the Autobots struggled to match the power of two armed Decepticons. Megatron's injuries no longer seemed to limit him. His twin swords whirled and slashed, and Starscream fought to keep up with his show of skill and raw, undiluted strength. He fought with his cannons and claws, kicked with his burning thrusters. He tasted energon on the air. It was easy.

Easy, until the ship circled back around for one more pass. Its cannons boomed as it rained down bolts of flame-coloured energy. Devastation bloomed where each shot hit. One took out the last remaining Autobots, and the shock-wave threw Megatron and Starscream back against the rubble of the eastern wall. Starscream landed atop Phase's broken form. He tensed, ready to transform and jet upward to take the ship down up-close. One glance at Megatron and he wavered.

The older mech was too damaged to fly, any mech could see that. If Starscream took off now, the next shot would take his leader out.

The cannons boomed, the sky lit up. Starscream grasped Megatron's arm and wrenched them both out of the line of fire with a quick thruster-boost. Both back on their feet, Megatron sheathed his swords. He was watching the ship too. There was no time to consider how Autobots had manufactured an aerial weapon.

"I suggest retreat, my lord," Starscream said hurriedly.

He saw the indecision in Megatron's optics. A nanoklik later, he said, "We'll go through the building."

Starscream nodded. They ran into the core of the burning tower as cannon-fire obliterated the atrium in their wake.

* * *

Starscream helped to support Megatron's weight as they walked. He wasn't sure where they were now, but it was somewhere underground. Some kind of subterranean service tunnel network. Megatron seemed to know where they were going. Starscream didn't like it – they were grounded, trapped, driven under the ground like vermin. Somehow, the Autobots were rallying, and Starscream and his leader were cut off from their allies. Primus only knew what had happened to Shockwave and the other corps.

Starscream hated being underground.

Megatron's battle-high had faded, and he grit his teeth with every step. Starscream could tell his mangled leg was hurting him. They had both taken some further damage during their escape, as the ship's ordnance bombarded the building. For some reason both their commlinks were down too. Starscream wondered if the Autobots had released some kind of interference to prevent their communications, to keep them isolated.

He paid close attention to Megatron's intakes, and the strength of his steps.

"My lord," he said, after nearly a joor of slowly travelling in silence. "Perhaps we should rest."

Megatron grunted. He did, however, allow Starscream to guide them into a side room, more of a cave really – some kind of service room. There was a low stone bench running the length of one wall. The rest of the room was taken up with what might be some sort of ancient generator, and several cannisters of fuel. Starscream eased Megatron down onto the bench and sat beside him. The older mech cycled several long intakes.

"Starscream," he said, at length.

"Sir?"

"Have you had any training in field repairs?"

Starscream grimaced and looked down. Megatron's leg was a mess, and he'd been leaking a trail of energon behind them. Starscream wondered how the mech was still awake, with the amount of fuel he had lost.

"Some, master." He had only the most cursory medic training, but his background in engineering might help him more. He knew how machines worked, and what he didn't know, he could usually work out. He slid off the bench and knelt at Megatron's feet. Megatron leaned back against the wall. His intakes were shallow, his faceplates pale. Smears of energon and black scorch marks marbled his armour. He pulled a small med-kit from his subspace and handed it down to Starscream.

"Just seal up the fuel-lines," he said. His vocals were strained but controlled. Starscream opened the kit.

He worked as carefully and quickly as he could. His hands got covered in energon. It was strangely intimate, reaching into his master's mechanisms, touching, manipulating, and repairing. When the main lines were sealed up, and Megatron was no longer leaking fuel, Starscream looked up. He withdrew his hands from the workings of Megatron's leg. The protoform was burnt away, and the armour was gone. But the limb's core seemed intact, and he should be able to walk, with help. Transformation was still out of the question. He met Megatron's optics.

Megatron wrapped a hand around Starscream's wrist.

"You fought like a Decepticon today," he said.

Starscream's spark swelled in pride and in gratitude. He leaned toward Megatron and bowed his head. Megatron's other hand came to rest on his helm. Starscream's intakes shook, and he gasped softly. "Lord Megatron..."

Megatron leaned over him, and when Starscream looked up his face was so close. His expression was serious, always serious. His optics burned, and Starscream longed to be touched by that fire.

His wings pushed up and out, an unconscious and instinctive move. He saw Megatron's optics flick to them. Starscream knelt up a little higher, and licked his lips. His throat felt dry, his armour hot. The situation felt unreal, like a surreal fever dream. Perhaps it was the fuel loss.

Megatron's hand tightened on his wrist. His other hand caressed the side of Starscream's helm, and the seeker dimmed his optics and turned his head into the touch. Megatron made a quiet sound at that, and then his hand was guiding him closer, tilting his head just so. Starscream gasped as the older mech's lips touched his own.

A moment's uncertainty, then Starscream's bull-headed confidence took control and he was kissing his leader back. His fingers splayed and pressed against Megatron's thigh. The older mech took control easily, and Starscream, while he yielded to his leader, still gave back whatever he could. All he could. His spark shone beneath his cockpit glass, bright and big and pulsing.

Megatron kissed him harder, deeper, and then drew back. Starscream chased him and suckled on his lip, which earned him an amused chuckle. The seeker purred at the deep rumble of his leader's vocals. He nuzzled Megatron's cheek.

"I suppose," Megatron said, his voice a soft, deep murmur. "You earned your brands today."

"My lord?" Starscream knew it was true – he had saved Megatron's life, and put his own in danger doing it. They had cut a swathe through the Autobots, and Starscream was even now taking care of his lord and leader.

Megatron looked to Starscream's wings again, and Starscream perked them up more under his scrutiny. Feeling bold, Starscream placed his free hand on Megatron's chest – in the centre, above the brand Megatron had given himself, at the beginning of everything.

Megatron covered Starscream's hand with his own. "If we return to base online," Megatron said, "I will allow you to take them."

"If we return...?" Starscream drew an intake, and looked up at his leader with a crooked, bright smile. "The great Megatron and his most loyal soldier? There's no way we can lose."

Megatron offered a smile in return. "Indeed."

* * *

Somehow, they made it back to base. A defensible eyrie situated in the mountains just beyond Kaon, the central command was located in and below a more ancient stronghold. Largely forgotten by civilised Cybertron, and safely beneath the Elite's radar, it was as safe a refuge as Megatron could have chosen.

They returned across country. When Megatron had got his commlink back up he ordered an immediate retreat via the underground service tunnels, and the surviving rebel forces pulled out of the lost city.

Unable to fly, the journey was slow. Starscream scouted ahead and around for fuel and enemies, and together they crossed the vast grey desert between the city and the mountains.

Shockwave was already there when they arrived. He met Megatron at the entrance, clearly consumed with worry despite his carefully controlled demeanour.

Starscream himself was all but ignored – he was a seeker, a glorified scout, and a rookie to boot. He stewed in resentment until Megatron waved off his crowd of generals and advisers, assuring them that his wounds were not life-threatening – not thanks to Starscream's quick field repairs – and turned to Starscream.

"I escaped the Autobot trap unscathed thanks to this brave recruit." He said it with a hint of that smile, though no one seemed to notice but Starscream. "I want him refuelled and repaired. And I need my damage dealing with as well. Where is the medic?"

"Here, my lord," purred a small, sleek red mech at the door. "If you would be so kind as to follow me. My assistants will see to your friend."

Starscream was led away by two big mechs, and he watched Megatron follow the little red bot. He felt a crushing disappointment, though he was not sure what he had expected. The base was humming with activity, and he was just one green recruit.

Joors later, however, a scout appeared at the door of Starscream's room with an invitation to Megatron's chambers. His fuel tank felt fluttery and uneasy as he made his way through the base, following the scout's directions, trying to find his way to his leader's rooms. Megatron's chambers were deep within the most central area of the compound – the most secure and defensible, Starscream supposed. Here the corridors were broad and well lit by strips of glowing violet. He turned a corner and walked down a wide hallway. There was a broad set of double doors at the end, and no where else to go.

Starscream glanced around, and then faced the doors with squared shoulders. His wings had dipped low in his nervousness, but he deliberately hiked them higher, trying to appear more confident, more worthy.

There was a comm unit beside the door. He tapped a glyph on its dark, reflective screen. It bloomed to life, and after a moment, Megatron's voice emitted from it: "Enter."

The doors clanked and hissed and slowly slid apart to reveal the chamber within. Starscream stepped through.

The room was large and spacious, the ceiling high and the furniture sparse and functional. The lighting was soft violet, the decorative palette stony greys and black. There were arched doors leading off to the right and left sides of the room.

"Come," Megatron's voice called from the right hand arch. Starscream took a deep intake and plunged forward. The double-doors shuddered closed behind him.

Through a short corridor, and then he was in a larger room. There was a wide viz-screen across one wall which showed the view from the top of the compound, the night sky studded with stars. The view was peaceful – no enemies on the horizon. In the centre of the room was a long, black table, with a few straight backed chairs set around it. A conference room, Starscream guessed, for Megatron's most intimate war councils. But what caught his optics was the round, low brazier at the far end of the chamber. The embers within it burned darkly, and something amongst the stones gave the smoke an aromatic, heady scent.

Megatron stood by the brazier, gazing into the low flames. He looked up when Starscream entered.

"Lord Megatron." Starscream dutifully bowed, hand over his spark. "You summoned me, my lord."

"Mm. Starscream." Megatron seemed to feel the name on his glossa as he spoke, his expression thoughtful. "Come here."

Starscream approached. His steps were slow and measured. He took care to keep his posture good and his wings high. He wasn't afraid. He wouldn't have Megatron thinking he was afraid.

"Do you know what this is?" Megatron asked. He gestured to the brazier. Now Starscream was closer, he saw something slim and dark extending from the embers – the handle of a branding iron. "Do you know why I called you here?"

"Yes sir." Starscream wet his lips. He shifted his optics from the fire to Megatron's face. Megatron continued to stare into the flames.

"Customarily this would occur in the throne room. There would be an audience." He met Starscream's questioning optics. His own optics burned still, like the fire of his spark, like the fire that would soon mark Starscream forever. He stood with his hands linked behind his back, and his expression was grave.

"I'm ready," Starscream said softly.

Megatron nodded. "It might be better for you if you sit."

"I'm fine standing."

"Mm." Megatron cast his optics all over Starscream's frame. Starscream's armour prickled, feeling warm under the scrutiny. He stood straighter, pushed his wings out wider. Megatron stepped closer. He was taller than Starscream, and Starscream really noticed it now, with the older mech looming over him. His fingertip traced a line up Starscream's cockpit. "I think..." Megatron stroked the top of Starscream's wing, and the seeker gasped and fought the instinct to move away. "_Here_." Megatron held onto the wing just before the upwardly curving tip. His other hand rested heavily on Starscream's opposite shoulder guard.

Starscream shuttered his optics, and his intakes came in short gasps. Megatron saw the tension in him, felt the spike in temperature, and moved his hand from Starscream's shoulder to his chin – turning his face toward him. Starscream opened his optics and fought to keep his intakes even.

In response to Megatron's questioning look, he said, "My wings are sensitive."

"...Then this will hurt."

"Even _this _is... I don't usually allow any mech to touch them."

Megatron was silent for a while. He looked at the smoothly curving wing and slowly moved his hand over its surface. Starscream gave a small cry, and he covered his mouth, mortified. Megatron traced curving patterns down the edges and across the plane of the wing with his warm, blunt fingertips. Starscream's sensornet sang and his spark swelled.

"_Megatron_–"

Megatron stopped his voice with a kiss. Starscream pushed his frame against him. He had been burning for this for too long, and now they were alone and safe and nothing would hold him back. Megatron kissed him and pushed gently. He walked him back until Starscream's aft bumped into the edge of the table. Starscream's intakes caught when Megatron continued to push and then _grind _against him. Megatron's hands left Starscream's wing just long enough to cup his aft, squeeze, and then lift him up so that he was sitting on the table's edge.

"I _said _it would be better if you sit," Megatron murmured against Starscream's mouth. Starscream licked his master's lips playfully, eagerly. He placed his hands on Megatron's chest and pushed his wings forward. Megatron reverently returned his hands to them – this time he stroked one wing with each hand, in symmetrical patterns that soon had the seeker whimpering.

When Megatron stepped away, he left Starscream needy and wanting.

Megatron stroked Starscream's cheek. "It's time."

Starscream remained where his leader had placed him, and watched as Megatron reached for the iron, grasped the slim handle, and pulled it from the brazier. The insignia glowed vivid red in the soft, dark light. Starscream felt a knot of apprehension in his fuel tank, and he held onto the edge of the table, claws curling and body tensing. He kept his optics fixed on Megatron's face as he approached.

"Lie back," Megatron said. His vocals were low and dark. Starscream obeyed wordlessly this time. He stretched back on the cool, hard stone table, and fanned his wings out to give his master room to do his work.

Megatron moved to his side. He chose the left wing first, set his hand on the trembling wing, and pressed gently down.

"Are you sure you're ready for this, seeker?" Megatron said.

"Use my name," Starscream said. His optics were closed, and his own vocals were low, his throat dry.

"Starscream. Are you sure?"

"Yes. Lord Megatron... Master. I know what I want."

"As you wish. Try not to move."

Starscream started to nod, but then the branding iron came down.

Pain shot in white and blinding red through his entire sensornet, causing all of his sensors to scream and scramble. His processor blanked, and he might have been screaming but his audios were glitching too. He writhed and bucked, and clawed at Megatron's frame, but the bigger mech used his bulk and strength to keep him down, keep him still.

It felt like an eternity, though it must only have been a few astroseconds. Megatron lifted the iron away.

The smell of burnt metal filled the air. Starscream whimpered with every gulping intake, and his claws twitched. His optics were wide open and over-bright, and stared blankly up at the ceiling. As he came to himself more, he realised he had Megatron's forearm across his chest and his weight pinning him down. The claws of Starscream's hand were embedded in Megatron's damaged shoulder, and pink energon made bright trails down both their armour.

Megatron grunted and began to move away. He tore his shoulder free of Starscream's claws, and fresh energon welled and spilled. He didn't seem to notice the new wound.

Starscream cycled his intakes more deeply. He was okay. His HUD was screaming warnings, though he knew from the diagnostics that the damage was minimal. It was only pain.

"That's one."

Megatron moved to the other side of the table. As he circled the seeker he kept his optics on the jet's prone and trembling form.

He repeated his earlier stance and, after shifting the hot iron to his other hand, he pressed the wing down. Starscream grit his teeth and braced himself this time. This time he knew what to expect, this time he knew exactly what was coming, and he could be ready. He was ready.

At first it didn't seem to hurt as much this time, and he curled his claws into the table's smooth surface and prepared to bear it out. But then his sensornet started glitching again, and the other wing was still hurting. Somehow it was _worse_, and he twisted under Megatron's strong hold and screamed.

The next thing he was aware of was Megatron stroking his face. Groggily, he looked around. His head was fuzzy, his processor felt full of static. Megatron kissed his lips lightly, though Starscream was too dazed to respond. He had slipped into stasis from the pain. How embarrassing...

He was still on the table. The branding iron was gone – back in the brazier, he supposed. Megatron knelt on the tabletop at his side, curled over him, his hands at the sides of his helm and his thumbs stroking his cheeks. The aromas of burning metal and whatever scented powder had been sprinkled on the flames mingled in his olfactory sensors, making him feel dizzy and sick.

He looked at Megatron, looking for answers.

Megatron kissed him again. There was a look in his optics, something deep and important... Starscream thought it was pride.

"It's done," he said softly. "Now... rise up. Decepticon."

Starscream pushed himself up on his elbows. Megatron helped him, gently pulling and coaxing with his large hands until Starscream was sitting up. Weakened by the ordeal, the seeker turned into and leaned against his master, and to his surprise and pride – his spark warming with something deep and momentous – Megatron wrapped his arms carefully around Starscream's shoulders and held him steady.

"I want to see..." Starscream turned his head, and Megatron aided him. Starscream gazed on his wing in wonder. The brand was still glowing hot, still raw, but the design was sharp and defined. He was glad Megatron had held him down. It had kept the insignia clean.

He felt a giddy feeling of elation bubbling up inside him. He managed a crooked, but bright grin, and turned back to meet Megatron's optics once more.

"You won't regret it... my lord," Starscream said. His voice was hoarse and shaky from screaming.

Megatron nuzzled Starscream's cheek, and then kissed him. "See that I don't." Another kiss, slow and long and lingering, and Starscream held onto the big mech's broad, strong shoulders. "Can you stand?"

"Yes."

"Come, then." Megatron loosened his arms around Starscream and stood. Starscream set his feet on the floor and stood also, but he swayed the moment he was upright. His equilibrium sensors seemed to have malfunctioned, and his frame felt shaky and weak. He grit his teeth, and Megatron caught him before he fell.

"This is familiar," the older mech said mildly.

Humiliation easing, Starscream laughed. He took a careful step, leaning on Megatron for support. The big mech was solid and tall and strong, reassuringly so. "Ah... thank you, my lord. Should I... return to my room?"

The ceremony was completed. He was a true Decepticon now, and would be issued with a formal rank. He had passed his initiation. He had proven his worth that cycle, in battle, in protecting his lord, and he had proven his devotion by enduring the pain required to bear his leader's mark.

"You could." Megatron stroked Starscream's helm, and rubbed his thumb against one of the vents. Starscream turned his head and leaned into the touch, letting out a small sound. "What if I ordered you to stay?"

"Ah... then I would stay..."

Megatron circled his arms around Starscream's waist and pulled him against him. Starscream's wings still hurt, but the closeness, the gravity of this situation, made him feel both warm and confused.

Another kiss, sweet and addicting. Starscream wanted this forever. His processor was spinning – that his leader would want _him_ out of all the other mechs, that he would gift _him _with the privilege of this... whatever this was. Whatever this could become. His spark was big and hot, and his wings, sore and burning as they were, pricked up high. Megatron's hands slid slowly down until they rested on Starscream's aft. Instead of lifting or moving him, this time he simply kneaded at the gentle curves. It made Starscream's frame warm, and he found himself rocking his hips back and forth.

The kiss grew deeper, hotter, and Megatron's hands rubbed and stroked the smooth aft, pinching the tops of Starscream's thighs. His fingertips crept lower, and he kneaded hard and spread the seeker's aft. Starscream gasped into the kiss and pressed his cockpit against Megatron's chest.

Megaton moved one hand up to Starscream's back, and broke the kiss.

"Starscream," Megatron said. "I order you to stay."


	10. Freedom

**Author's Notes:** Hello everyone. So, I sort of forgot I hadn't posted this chapter here yet. Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed - I've had some really lovely reviews for this story, and I'm sorry I can't reply to all of them. I also need to thank my girlfriend, my muse and enabler, without whom I never would have written this monster, let alone finished it. Anyway, this is the last chapter. I'll be writing the second story in the series in November, so I hope you'll all come back to read that, too, when the time comes xx

* * *

Vault returned two days later. Starscream lay on the floor of his cell, wondering if being imprisoned on the same rock as _Megatron_– let alone in the next cell – was part of his eternal punishment. The black mech disabled the force-field at the door and drawled a greeting. Starscream looked up. Vault leant on the door frame, insouciant and unprofessional. His hand was transformed into a cosh, and he had a pair of cuffs in his other servo.

"Time for you to go back upstairs, Decepticon."

Starscream stood. He considering overpowering the guard – and then every other guard in the place. The odds were bad. They were his kind of odds, but the moment passed, and before he knew it Vault had the cuffs on his wrists and their partial paralysis numbed and sedated his frame.

As he passed Megatron's door, he hesitated and looked in. It was the first time they had seen each other in a thousand stellar cycles.

The mech in the cell had dim grey armour, cracked here and there, marked with old, old wounds. He sat on a berth at the end with hunched shoulders and a haunted, hungry look in his optics. The expression on his gaunt, pale face was grave. Their gazes met for an instant before Vault pulled Starscream on.

The guard led Starscream back up the steep, winding hallway, and back to his old cell, where he passed the next night cold and alone. The joors stretched on in silence. He never thought he would miss Megatron's voice.

That night gave him time to remember things he thought he had forgotten. Memory files he thought he had deleted long ago. It made the empty cavern where his spark had been ache. Recharge did not come easy that cycle.

The next morning the force-field barring his cell was disabled, and Starscream was allowed to go upstairs to join the other inmates for breakfast.

Vault watched him a little too closely as he walked up, but Starscream ignored him. Something inside him had cooled in the last few orbital cycles. Their brief, frantic 'facing had taken the edge off his body's need, and now the thought of sharing a private moment with the Autobot had lost its appeal. He didn't think Megatron had a hand in that – Megatron's words, Megatron's presence...

The dining hall was less crowded than it had been the last time. He was able to walk to the hatch unmolested, and once he had his fuel he picked a spot with a good view of the whole hall and sat down at the head of his table. The fuel was awful. He'd been spoiled on the delicacies Vault brought him from his mysterious "friend".

A tray clattered down onto the table by Starscream's side. "Strange to see a familiar set of face-plates in this place."

Starscream's processor stalled. He looked around. The mech standing beside him was familiar indeed – around the same height as him, though more heavyset, and a flyer, painted in tan and violet. There was no mistaking that face, helm, and voice.

"Blitzwing?"

The triple-changer sank into the seat to Starscream's right. His optics were wide. Then his face spun and the black, grinning visage said, "Have you come back from the dead to haunt poor old Megatron?"

Starscream smirked. "Maybe I have." He glanced around. A few mechs were looking their way, but the rumble of chatter continued unabated. No bot tried anything with him today. "You know he's here? You've seen him?"

Another spin, and the red face bellowed, "Do you think I'm stupid? I've been here for two hundred stellar cycles, of course I know!"

"All right, all right," Starscream snapped. He hadn't missed the mech's volatile moods one bit. Of all the old faces to run into,it had to be these three. "Who else is here?"

Fortunately, the cool-headed personality returned to explain flatly, "Lugnut was, for a little while, but they shipped him off to a mining colony on the other side of the galaxy, the last thing I heard. Shockwave is in the next compound."

Starscream snarled. He never liked that scheming, cold-sparked downgrade.

He slowly picked at his fuel while Blitzwing filled him in. Blitzwing seemed glad to talk, and eager to share the low-down of the place with an "old comrade" as he phrased it. He seemed relieved that Starscream had shown up – that he had survived at all – which came as a surprise.

He learned that Shockwave, by and large, called the shots on the little prison planet. Word was he had the warden in his subspace pocket. "There are others, of course," Blitzwing explained. "But Shockwave had the edge early on, as he worked as Megatron's mouthpiece and his hand." Starscream noticed Blitzwing unthinkingly dropped the "Lord" from Megatron's name.

"Mechs respected him," Starscream said.

Blitzwing nodded. "There were many still very loyal to Megatron at the end of the war. But as the stellar cycles passed, and Megatron became less active, more quiet... Shockwave stepped in to fill the space he left. They say he runs the army outside, from in here..."

Starscream stared down into his fuel. There was still an army? Operating covertly, governed by a usurper hiding in prison... His processor was spinning. He felt like he'd stepped into a surreal otherworld. And yet, it made a kind of twisted sense. The mech he'd seen down in the small cells had been a husk of his once-great leader. He still remembered Megatron's fire and elemental strength. The mech in that cell was just a ghost.

"So where do _you _stand?"

Blitzwing switched faces and giggled. "I just get by, ahah. It's a dangerous time to be a Decepticon." Back to cool. "Lord Shockwave would like to extend an invitation to you, Starscream."

_Lord _Shockwave. "Oh yeah?"

Blitzwing looked around, and then pulled a small datapad from his subspace and slid it along the table. Starscream pocketed it without reading and stood up. He left his tray, glanced coolly around the room, and returned to his cell.

Alone in his cell, he sat on the berth and read the pad. He nodded once when he had read it. The next cycle, the next evening, he would meet with the puppet-master... and put him back in his place.

* * *

The next evening he called in the favour Vault owed him.

The black mech seemed all-too-eager to lead him through secret byways to "Lord" Shockwave's wing in the adjacent compound. They travelled after lights-out, and kept away from the main patrol routes. Starscream wondered how Vault knew these secret short-cuts so well.

It was a long walk, and the conversation was strained. Eventually they fell into tense silence.

Shockwave's quarters were only marginally grander than Starscream's own cell in terms of size, but the décor was vastly improved. Starscream saw what mechs' loyalty and devotion would buy – a stash of refined energon, decorative fabrics and maps, a comfortable-looking, wide, low berth...

Shockwave was seated at a sparse, sleek desk in the rear corner of the room. Starscream stepped inside. There was no force field on the door, even though it was deep into the night-cycle. Blitzwing stood guard, and nodded to Starscream as he entered.

Shockwave looked unchanged by his years of imprisonment. He sat with his back straight, his single optic glowing flatly in the cool shadows. Starscream yawned loudly, and Shockwave slowly put down his stylus and turned to face him.

"Long time no see, Shockwave," Starscream drawled.

Shockwave gave him a long, inscrutable look. He'd kept his darker, Decepticon colours, though Starscream thought there was more steely grey than purple now. He looked taller, though that could have been Starscream's optics playing tricks.

"Indeed. Such a surprise to see you _up and about_, Starscream."

"No bot was more surprised than me, believe me." He moved into the room and sprawled inelegantly over a seat, hooking a leg over the chair's arm. Shockwave watched him, his posture stiff, his frame unmoving.

"I came to thank you for the gifts," Starscream said. He inspected his claws with mock nonchalance.

"Ah..." Shockwave sat back and crossed his legs. He touched the tips of his claws together in an arch before his chest. "So you did receive them. Good."

"Did you know Megatron is rotting in a cell down in the basement? You do know that, don't you?"

Shockwave sighed. He looked away. Starscream wasn't sure if he looked sad or simply tired. He had never been able to tell what Shockwave thought or felt, with that blank, inexpressive mask of a face.

"Yes, I'm quite aware, Starscream." Shockwave looked back at Starscream. "I know everything that goes on in this place – and far beyond. I heard all about your exploits at Naresus. I can't say I'm happy with Swindle's behaviour, of course. He's a deserter and a traitor, just as much as yourself."

"I'm a traitor, sure. And you're Megatron's loyal number one, right?" Starscream said with an arched brow. "Is that why you're up here in this comfortable cell, pulling all the strings from the safest stronghold you'll ever find, while the old mech goes crazy all alone down in that tomb?"

"My my, Starscream," Shockwave replied. "I never knew you cared so much about your former leader."

Starscream laughed bitterly. "I don't care, but he's depressing company when I have to be his companion down there."

"Perhaps if your behaviour improved you would not have to endure such disagreeable company." Shockave stood and started to slowly pace with his talons linked behind his back. "I invited you here to make you an offer, Starscream. Blitzwing has, I'm sure, 'filled you in', as it were, as to how the Decepticon forces stand at the moment. The... chain of command."

"He made it pretty clear." Starscream watched the other mech's every movement.

"Mm. Good. Then I hope you can appreciate the position I find myself in. You are an unknown quantity, a wild card. You've been dead for a thousand stellar cycles, and even before then you were an unpredictable rogue – you turned on your former master, so why should any new leader trust you? Well, as a gesture of my good will, I'm willing to offer you the chance to prove yourself... to clear your name, as it were."

"New leader?"

"Try to understand my position," Shockwave said patiently. "When Megatron and myself, and many others, were first incarcerated, here I remained my leader's most loyal and steadfast lieutenant. I acted as his right hand and carried out the actions he could not, as a result of his unfortunate straits. Over time, of course, as the web grew... bots began to look to me as a leader, rather than as a tool of Megatron's. At the same time, Megatron himself... withdrew. He is not the same mech you knew a thousand stellar cycles ago, Starscream – and even less so the mech you swore your allegiance to. He is a shadow of his former self. He has none of the strength a leader needs to pull his forces back from the brink of destruction... and let me assure you, that was the situation they were in. They still are. Autobots have a tight choke hold on half the galaxy. The Decepticons needed a _capable _leader if they were to avoid extinction, not a shadow trapped as much by his own broken spark as much as by the walls that hold him."

"It was the only _logical _thing to do..." Starscream said.

"Exactly!" Shockwave's talons made an emphatic fist. He turned his back on Starscream and paused for several kliks. When he spoke again he seemed more calm and under control, more like the tightly controlled mech Starscream knew and despised.

"The offer I put to you is simple. Serve me, swear your loyalty to me. Perform one small task for me. Prove yourself trustworthy and I will allow you back into the ranks. You could be a powerful asset – you were always a strong fighter."

Starscream snorted. "You must be desperate for soldiers if you're asking for _me_."

"Maybe I am. What is your answer?" He turned back to Starscream.

Starscream shrugged. "What's the task?"

Shockwave cycled a slow breath. "Only this: kill Megatron."

Starscream frowned. "Kill him yourself."

"And risk my own troops turning on me? My legitimacy as leader stems from my loyalty to Megatron and the cause he built. To turn against him now would undermine everything I have worked for." He began to pace again. "But you? You are already tarred and branded a traitor. It would be nothing for you. You must admit it has a kind of pleasing symmetry, don't you think? To finish the job you started."

Starscream folded his arms. "Why don't you do it in secret? You have the guards in your subspace pocket, I assume. Get one of them to do it for you."

Shockwave tutted. "With no prior motive, it would be traced back to me."

"So you'll let me take the fall instead?" Starscream hissed.

"As new leader, I could grant you a pardon. As an act of mercy, your past crimes would be wiped clean. You could have your life back."

Starscream sank back into the chair. His optics focused on nothing, his processor worked. It was a tidy, neat plan. It made sense. He would kill Megatron, the mech he hated so much. He would take the blame, and Shockwave would "forgive" him. Reinstated into the Decepticon ranks, such as they were, Starscream could reboot his life, he could work to fix everything that had gone wrong the first time around.

Starscream thought about it. He'd wanted to terminate Megatron's miserable life for four million years. Now he was being offered a reward for doing it. He should leap hungrily at the chance. Instead, his instincts recoiled in suspicion and contempt.

"Not a chance in the Pit."

Shockwave's shoulders lowered, and he bowed his head. His optic dimmed. "...I expected as much." He sounded gravely disappointed. Starscream knew better. "May I ask why?"

Starscream stood. "I hated Megatron, but that doesn't mean I would ever follow _you_. You're no leader, and you're definitely not mine."

Shockwave nodded. "You leave me no choice then. I thank you, actually, for making this easier. You are free to go."

"What?" Starscream flexed his claws and looked at Shockwave warily. "You're just going to let me go?"

Shockwave spread his talons. "How could I possibly hope to threaten an immortal mech? Did you know the fuel I sent you was laced with the most deadly poison known to Cybertronians?"

Starscream shutterblinked, then swallowed. "...It was delicious."

"Just my first little test. Leave me now." Starscream gave him one last fiery look and turned toward the door. Before he could step out, Shockwave said, "I used to visit him, you know."

Starscream stilled. Outside the cell, Vault stood ready to escort him back, and Blitzwing stood to attention.

"Megatron?"

"Yes... Before. When I was still..."

"When you were still loyal." It felt like some kind of joke, he, Starscream, saying something like that, but his scorn was real. Somehow Shockwave's cold, calculating coup felt like more of a betrayal than Starscream's obsession had ever been. Somewhere in his thousand year sleep, or perhaps during his journey through the lonely cosmos, he had lost his taste for revenge. He could barely remember what he was avenging. A lover's quarrel snowballed for four million years? After seeing the broken mech in the cell down there, all he felt for Megatron now was pity.

Pity, and the knowledge that, just maybe, he might be useful. Starscream hated to see an opportunity go to waste.

"...You can put it like that if you wish. I am still loyal to the _cause_."

Starscream spoke on instinct, the words rolling off his glossa unbidden, "Megatron is the cause." His cheeks flushed subtly. He was glad he still had his back to the other mech.

"He was, once," Shockwave said as though Starscream had not slipped. "As I said, I visited him. I would receive my orders, and he would run his empire from that lonely cell... Sad, really, isn't it? You've been down there, you've seen for yourself. Back then, I was eager to show my loyalty. I would give him anything he needed. You understand me, I'm sure... Well. As time went by, and my own power grew, he became more and more superfluous. I would see him less and less – I _needed_ him less and less. _They _didn't need him either."

"Is this story going somewhere?" Starscream snapped.

"My point is... the last few stellar cycles I've descended to his little dungeon, it wasn't for new orders. It wasn't to report to him. He's so starved for company down there on his own that he'll take any contact offered to him. It's pathetic. I pity him. But I can no longer respect him."

Starscream swallowed, and then he cycled a slow, long intake. His processor carefully turned over what Shockwave had said. "...Contact?"

"Do I need to spell it out for you, Starscream? It's terribly sad what our fallen leader has become, but even now he still has his, ah... uses. I wanted you to know. In case it sways your decision, in any way. After all, such a sad creature as that should hardly inspire loyalty, even loyalty as fragile as yours."

Starscream snarled and turned. Something deep in his processor snapped, and he descended on Shockwave. He tore a gash across Shockwave's chassis with his claws, cutting deep. Before he could strike again Vault and Blitzwing burst into the cell and grabbed him and pulled him away. Starscream spat and snarled and kicked, and he knew the two mechs would only be able to hold him for so long.

"You piece of rotten slag! Sparkless downgrade _trash_!"

Shockwave was catching his intakes, leaning on the desk with one hand pressed to the wound on his chest.

"Starscream, I'm shocked... I... ah, this was unnecessary." He looked down at the energon spilling through his claws. "All this over a mech you hated and tried to murder so many times?"

"At least I never used him as a drone, you strutless spikesucker."

"Calm yourself. I had hoped we wouldn't have to do this, but..." He nodded to Vault. "Deactivate him."

The guard transformed his arm into a club. Starscream growled low in his throat. None of them moved, and Shockwave watched them in the tense silence.

"Hey Vault," Starscream said.

"...What?"

"You were a Decepticon once, before you became the Autobots' lapdog. How do you feel about rescuing your lost leader and returning to the ranks as a celebrated hero?" Starscream gave the black mech a ragged grin. He was in no position to bargain, unarmed and captive, all the odds stacked against him. But his optics must have contained some mad fire because Vault listened, and he wavered. Finally, he shrugged and answered Starscream's manic grin with a lazy smile.

"The pay here is slag, anyway. Why the frag not?"

Starscream turned to Blitzwing. "What about you? You weren't always this pretender's creature. How does freedom sound to you?"

Blitzwing's faces spun and he laughed madly. "No more prison food? Where do I sign?" Another switch, and then, "Let's blow this place to scrap metal and go knock some Autobot helms!"

"Spoken like a _real _Decepticon." Starscream nodded toward Shockwave. "Vault, deal with him for me, will you?"

"Yes sir. Lord Starscream."

Shockwave raised his hands to fend off the blow, but Vault's truncheon came down on the side of his helm with a loud _crack_, and he collapsed, his optic black.

Starscream laughed. "_Lord _Shockwave," he said. "I think you've just been overthrown."

* * *

Vault helped Starscream past the guard patrols once more and led him down through the quiet prison to the lowest basement levels. Blitzwing followed, watching the rear. Starscream kissed Vault and whispered promises of power, a position of high rank in his revived army and favours in his berth. In return, Vault unlocked the force-field on Megatron's cell.

Starscream stepped inside.

Megatron was in recharge on the berth at the back of the cell.

Starscream turned back to Vault and whispered, "Go and find me an exit. I don't care how you do it. Try not to raise an alarm... yet." To Blitzwing, "Find weapons if you can and wait with Vault."

Vault nodded, glanced flatly at Megatron, and then moved off. Blitzwing saluted and followed. Starscream turned back to the sleeping mech.

"I wish I didn't need you," he murmured as he moved stealthily forward. "But I'll never get them all back without you. I know that now... I need this to be a sure thing. A broken people need a leader they can love and believe in. That's always been you..."

He stepped to the berth. When Megatron still didn't stir, he leaned down and placed his hand on the berth by Megatron's head. He leaned closer -

Megatron's optics onlined and his hand closed around Starscream's throat.

They stared at one another in frozen, tense silence. Starscream didn't know how long it took. Megatron looked disoriented, as though he was still in his dream. Starscream suppressed the urge to fight back.

Gradually, realisation of the truth dawned in Megatron's optics. Starscream saw the recognition change his expression. His grip loosened but he didn't let go.

"...Starscream."

There was a question there, Starscream thought. There was uncertainty.

"Megatron." Slowly, as though not to startle the rattled mech further, Starscream covered Megatron's hand with his own – trying to encourage him to let go of his throat. The old mech was still strong, however deadened his spirit might be.

"...What are you doing here?" Megatron slowly sat up and looked around. Starscream took the opportunity to free himself of the big mech's grip. He looked at his "fallen" leader. His frame didn't seem to have any damage other than superficial – thousand-year-old cracks, scuffs that no bot had bothered to buff out, a few missing bits of plating. There was a haunted look to his optics and a hesitancy to his movements. His real damage was inside.

He rubbed his throat and stood over Megatron. "Believe it or not," Starscream said. "I'm here to rescue you."

Megatron drew a breath, but before he could utter a word a siren cut through the night.

Starscream covered his audios and swore. "That useless downgrade raised the alarm! He's betrayed me!"

"Who, me?" Starscream turned. Vault stood in the doorway. "We have three kliks before the heavies find us down here, half a joor before the Guard arrive. If you still want to go, we have to go _now_. Sir."

Starscream nodded as relief flooded his spark. He turned back to Megatron. "Come on!"

"Starscream, what-?"

"Does it sound like I have time to explain?" He held out his hand and gestured urgently. "We have to go _now_!" Megatron reached out, and Starscream grabbed his wrist and pulled.

Vault had disabled the gun turrets outside the cell with his cannon. He handed Starscream a heavy blaster. "Blitzwing's waiting in the hangar."

"Not bad, Autobot."

"Decepticon now. Right?"

"Right. So where's my exit?"

"There's a tunnel."

"Underground?" Starscream's processor filled with trepidation.

"Only for a bit. It takes us to an abandoned wing to the south, and I know for a fact that's where they keep the impounded ships. We can take a shuttle and fly off this rock."

Starscream nodded grimly. "Let's go."

Starscream didn't like having to put his trust in a mech he barely knew, but he was sure Vault had enough reason not to double-cross him. He was already a marked mech, a criminal now whether he betrayed Starscream or not. It would be worth Vault's while to remain loyal at least until they escaped Akeron.

He led them down, deeper even than Starscream thought it was possible to go. An abandoned mining tunnel. There was a vast web of shafts and tunnels throughout the planet, forming a labyrinth a mech could get lost in for a thousand stellar cycles if he wasn't lucky. He hoped Vault remembered the way.

Starscream was on edge. His wing tips brushed the walls to either side, and for a time they had to crawl and he was afraid of getting stuck. Megatron followed him in stony silence. Starscream wasn't sure if he was even fully there, and he moved as though still half-stuck in stasis. Maybe he thought he was dreaming.

The tunnels eventually spat them out into a vast, dark hangar. Starscream used the blaster to cave in the exit to the tunnels once they were out, to make it harder for any pursuers they might attract.

The hangar was filled with big, looming shapes, though Starscream could barely see them in the darkness. One of the ships was illuminated, and its engines filled the echoing space.

"Blitzwing?"

Vault nodded. "We confiscated this one from a slaver who passed through the area without a license. It's big and it's powerful. It should have half a tank at least. He should already have it prepped."

"Excellent."

They boarded the ship and found their way to the bridge. Megatron hung behind, but Starscream didn't have time to wait around for him. Starscream thought the ship looked familiar.

The craft turned slowly, Blitzwing steering, Vault taking a gunner's station. The hangar doors were broad grey steel. Vault smirked as he activated the ship's weapons.

They blasted through the doors. The way out was a steep, wide slope carved smoothly out of stone. Starscream pushed Blitzwing from the pilot's seat and took his place, leaving the triple-changer to take the second gun. The engines roared, and the big, angular ship surged forward and up.

The launch was easier than Starscream had expected. The ship was bombarded with laser-fire as security finally seemed to realise what was happening, but the area they took off from was quiet and half derelict. The ship's heavy-duty shields fended off the worst of the artillery, though they still bounced and jolted around the sky until they could burst free of the planet's gravity.

The space-bridge in the planet's outer orbit loomed on the forward viz-screen, and Starscream yelled in triumph. Security drone ships were pouring from the planet's surface. He brought his fist down on the emergency thruster control. The ship surged forward and through the gate. Reality lurched, the view on the screen blurred, and in an astrosecond they were light-years away from the accursed Autobot stronghold.

"Are we home free?" Blitzwing said.

Starscream grinned and sat back, sighing and relaxing.

They relaxed in silence for a moment, before a mech's vocals broke the peace. "...The Autobots will be right on our tails unless we destroy the space bridge before they can jump through it. Don't tell me you didn't think of _that_, Starscream."

Starscream turned in dismay. Megatron sat in the captain's chair.

"You-! When did you get up here? That's _my _chair."

"You took the pilot's seat." Megatron watched Starscream with dark optics, though Starscream saw a brief curl of amusement at the corners of his mouth. He wondered when the old mech had last smiled.

While Starscream spluttered at the injustice of being usurped _already_, he struggled to turn the ungainly ship about. The cannons still had some juice in them, and a blast from two of the three had the space bridge blooming into blue and red fire. The warp window collapsed, and the ship was thrown by the shock-wave.

"Better," Megatron said. "But they'll trace our signal and track us unless we transwarp onward. Starscream, locate the nearest functional space bridge and take us there."

Megatron's tone had taken on the rich, confident timbre of command, and he had slipped back into his role as leader as easily as cycling intakes. It was as though his imprisonment had never happened. Starscream fumed and muttered, and slammed at the control console until the course was set. He engaged the ship's primary thrusters, and a moment later the big craft was moving through space at maximum speed. There was a trading post a few joors' flight away that was big enough to have its own space bridge.

Looking around the bridge from the comfort of his new throne, Megatron said, "What is this ship?"

Starscream studied the controls, the layout, the uniquely flamboyant decorative flourishes. The design of the guns.

"I..." Starscream shook his head and laughed incredulously. "I think it's called the _Lady Luck_."

"You know it?" Vault said.

"Let's say I had a little run in with its previous owner."

Vault nodded. He turned to Megatron. "Lord Megatron, sir." He stood to attention, then dropped into a deep bow. Starscream sneered. "Vault, at your service."

Blitzwing watched Vault analytically, and sank down as well. "Lord Megatron."

"Hm. So this is my avenging army," Megatron said.

Starscream crossed his arms. "It's a start."

* * *

They changed course several times in the long joors following their initial escape, bouncing from one space bridge to another, confusing the trail. By the time Megatron decided it was enough Starscream didn't even know where they were, but they let the _Lady Luck _drift into a slow orbit around a small, uninhabited planet in a deserted area of space, and declared it time to rest.

Megatron rose from the captain's seat and wordlessly left the bridge. Starscream watched him with narrowed optics.

"You're on watch duty," he hissed at Blitzwing, still an the gunner's station. He stood and stalked out of the command deck, following Megatron.

He caught up with the old mech at the door to the captain's quarters. He slammed his hand on the closed door before Megatron could enter, and slid his body between it and Megatron. His back against the door, he folded his arms and fixed his former leader with a challenging glare.

"Going somewhere?" he snapped. "You seem to have made a miraculous recovery."

Megatron met Starscream's optics. The intensity of his stare left Starscream unnerved. "Freedom does strange things to a mech," Megatron said.

"Hm." Starscream looked away, sullen. He put his hands on his hips.

"No bombs for me today, Starscream? No blade in the back?" He sounded so tired.

"I need you," Starscream said.

"What?"

"...To restore the army. I need you," Starscream sneered. "I tried, I can't do it alone. I bet you love hearing that."

"Ah..." Starscream saw something strange in Megatron's optics. A kind of hunger. _Starved for contact_, Shockwave had said. He had been all alone for a thousand stellar cycles, with only but Shockwave's "visits" to ease the loneliness and silence. Starscream shuddered. "Does this mean I have your loyalty this time?" Megatron said, though Starscream heard the heavy cynicism.

He shrugged. "I need you _online_. For now."

"I see. It would seem I need you as well. A mech needs allies, especially in today's 'verse," Megatron said. He passed his hand over his optics. "However questionable they might be. What of the new mech? This _Vault_? Can we count on him?"

"He's mine," Starscream said. "I can keep him in line. And there's no 'we'. I pulled you out of that Pit for one purpose."

Megatron sighed. "I suppose you're going to tell me these are your quarters, as well."

"It's the captain's suite. I'm calling the shots from now on, old mech, so you'd just better get used to it."

Megatron raised a brow and stepped closer. His chest almost touched Starscream's cockpit. "Is that so?" Starscream stiffened when Megatron's hands rested on the door on either side of his hips. They held each other's gaze. Starscream didn't move, and neither of them backed down. "A proposal, then," Megatron said. That accursed half-smile was on his lips again. "In the spirit of our new-found alliance..." He reached out with one hand and hit the door control panel. The portal slid open and Starscream stumbled back. Megatron stepped fluidly with him. Starscream flushed in indignation.

"Megatron...!"

Megatron turned them swiftly, and Starscream suddenly found himself pinned to the wall beside the door, inside the softly lit chamber. Megatron's optics were hungry and needful. The playful smile was gone, and Starscream realised he was seeing now the damaged mech he rescued from the Pit-damned dungeon. The moment was intense and loaded. Starscream couldn't look away.

"A proposal," Megatron murmured. "...We share command."

Megatron's face was only a breath from Starscream's own. The heat of his frame felt too close, too hot. "You would never..."

Megatron silenced him with a kiss. Starscream stiffened, ready to throw him off. But the kiss was so light, so hesitant, that Starscream paused. A shudder in Megatron's energy field told Starscream what he needed to know.

Slowly he brought his hands up to Megatron's arms. He kissed back, and Megatron responded. He pressed Starscream to the wall with his larger frame. It was sweet and warm, and Starscream, dazed, let himself get lost in the kiss. He felt like he was reconnecting with a part of himself he thought was long deleted.

When they eventually broke apart, Megatron nuzzled Starscream's cheek, and Starscream tried to make sense of the mixed-up world he had fallen into.

Megatron drew back, and his expression was both dark and expectant. He looked to Starscream's wing, and his fingertips ghosted over the brand. Still sensitive, even after all these millennia.

Starscream shivered and closed his optics.

"It's never been enough for you before," Megatron said. His vocals were a soft, deep rumble, his tone wistful, thoughtful.

"It was never a choice before. Everything you promised, everything we had when you... when you gave me these... It was all a lie."

"Not all. Not lies." Megatron turned Starscream's head with a hand on his helm and kissed him again – deeper this time, enough to make Starscream moan and slump against the wall. Memory files scrolled through his processor and made him weak, angry, desperate... He looked at Megatron with bright optics, silently begging him to stop this cruel charade. "You gave me back my freedom," Megatron said instead. "At the very least, I'm in your debt."

Starscream closed his optics and rested the front of his helm against Megatron's shoulder. Megatron curled his arms around him.

"These are _my _quarters," Starscream said. After a silence, he added, quietly, "But you can stay, if you want."

"So generous." Megatron ducked his head for a kiss. Starscream avoided it, put his hand against Megatron's chest.

"The Guard could find us any astrosecond..." He pushed his way out of Megatron's arms and walked to the berth. He sat down.

When he looked up, Megatron was watching him. Starscream scowled. "I'm not going to kill you in your sleep," he said. He knew what Megatron wanted, but he couldn't give it to him. He would not give up control to him. With Megatron, it wouldn't just be passing the time. It wouldn't just be fun. With Megatron it would mean too much.

Megatron crossed the room with slow and heavy steps. Starscream lay back. His wings took up most of the berth, and he stubbornly refused to move when Megatron tried to stretch his large frame out. Neither of them would surrender the captain's rooms, neither of them willing to give up superiority. In the end, they settled on an awkward arrangement, Starscream on his back, wings spread, while Megatron curled at his side with his helm just brushing the tip of one wing. Starscream linked his claws over his cockpit and stared at the ceiling. They were silent for a long time, tense in each other's presence but lulled by the chamber's soft, dark lighting. The ship's engines hummed a lullaby.

They didn't speak. In the darkness, Starscream's hands fell to his sides, and the tips of his claws brushed against cool, smooth metal. Megatron's cannon. He curled his fingers around the curve. One of Megatron's hands rested, warm and heavy, on the brand on Starscream's wing. His breath felt hot against the tip, and Starscream could tell from the slow rhythm of his intakes that he had fallen into recharge. Starscream closed his optics.

The empire waited for them, their soldiers and ships scattered and hidden across the galaxies. They would recover their lost forces, rebuild the Decepticon fleet. Starscream thought of Cybertron, the home-world he had barely seen in his long life, and felt a trickle of hope. He turned his head toward Megatron, and as recharge slowly claimed him there was a smile on his face and a warmth where his spark should be. His war was far from over.


End file.
